: 


\  V  V  V 


GIFT  OF 
KNON    Lc 


li  . 


DULCE  DOMUM 


THE  BURDEN  OF  THE  SONG. 


BY    BENJ.   F.  TAYLOR,  LL.D., 

AUTHOR  OF  "SONGS  OF  YESTERDAY,"  "OLD  TIME  PICTURES,"  ETC. 


CHICAGO: 
S.   C.   GRIGGS    AND    COMPANY. 

1884. 


COPYRIGHT,  1883, 
BY  S.  C.  GRIGGS  AXD  COMPANY, 


— 

KNIGHT    &   LECH  AH 


3G5998 


THE  SUN  THAT  NEVER  SETS,     - 

NEW  YORK  "  NORTH  WOODS," 

THE  CAPTAIN'S  DRUM,    - 

HEARTS  AND  HEARTHS, 

A  LAMENT  FOR  ADAM,    - 

"DON'T  GIVE  UP  THE  SHIP," 

LINCOLN  AND  HIS  PSALM, 

THE  Two  ARMIES,    - 

ROSE,  LILY  AND  MAY  FLOWER, 

MASSACHUSETTS  SENDS  GREETING, 

"Goo  KNOWS,"   - 

THISTLE  SERMON, 

A  BIRTH-DAY, 

ROCK  EYRIE, 

THE  FLYING  HERALDS,   - 


21 
29 
35 
39 
45 
49 
51 
55 
61 

65 
67 
72 
73 


vii 


viii  CONTENTS. 

AUGUST  LILIES,    -  83 

CENTENNIAL  BELLS,  -           -  -           -           -•_           .              87 

Two  RIVERS  AND  Two  SHIPS,  95 

OLD-FASHIONED  SPRING,        -  -           -            -           -             101 

ONE  STEP  MORE,  .                               107 

THE  BEAUTY  OF  DEATH,       -  ...             113 

THE  CALIFORNIA  YEAR,  -  -            -            -            -       119 

A  VISION  OF  HANDS,  -                       -                        125 

"AND  FORBID  THEM  NOT,"       ...  .            _       133 

PRAIRIE  LAND,  -                                                               135 

THE  DESERTED  HOMESTEAD,       -  -                   139 

THE  GARDEN  THERMOMETER,  -                         149 

THE  MINGLING  OF  THE  NATIONS,  ...                              151 

WELCOME  HOME,        -  ......            155 


"  ROCK  EYRIE,  HAIL  !"    -  -     Frontispiece 

"MAINE  AND  ALASKA  HAND  IN  HAND, 

THE    SELF-SAME    HOUR    BEHOLD    IN    ONE 

A    RISING    AND    A    SETTING    SUN  !  "  -  5 

FLOWERS, 

A  BIG  "MAJOR"  OF  BEARS,       -  12 

A  PIONEER,  -        13 

"AH,   AS    FINE    AND    AS    CLEAR    AS    A    SUNLIT  VIGNETTE 

Is    THE    OFFICE  WHENCE    CAME    TlIE    BLACK    RlVER    GAZETTE,"  -  14 

A  "  SPOT"  IN  THE  WILDERNESS,  -        17 

SOME  WILDERNESS  WEATHER,      -  19 

"'TWAS    DOUBLE-DRAG    AND    HOLY  WORD, 

THUS    SAITH    THE    DRUM    AND    THUS    THE    LORD,"  -  27 

"  FOR    UP    THE    SWEET-HEART   SPRANG    AND    LAID 
A    MUFFLING    FINGER    ON    THE    BELL 
LEST    THE    SHRILL    STEEL    SHOULD    STRIKE   AND    TELL,"       -  -  31 

•'AND    FINGERS    TOUCHED    AND    FANCY  WOKE,"  -  -  32 

A  DAY-DREAM,      -  35 


x  ILL  US  TRA  TIONS. 

"FOR    A    TRINKET    OF    SILVER,   THE    HONEY-BEE'S    MOON 
HUNG   LOW  IN    THE   AZURE,   A    GIFT    FROM    THE    LORD," 


EVE'S  ORCHARD, 


"ON  EVERY  ROYAL  JACKET  THAT  HE  MET 
HE  SLASHED  A  SCARLET  CHEVRON  GOOD  AND  STRONG," 

THE  CYPRESS  TREE, 

A  GLIMPSE  OF  THE  DOME, 

"  BUT  BROIDERED  ON  HIS  HEBREW  HEM 
THE  ROSES  GLOW  ALONG," 

"  IN  GALILEE  SOME  LILIES  HUNG 
THEIR  CHALICES  OF  WHITE," 

"A  PILGRIM  FLOWER  —  A  TROUBLED  SEA, 
A  WINTER  WILD  AND  WHITE," 

"THE  WORLD  TAKES  STOCK  IN  BUNKER  HlLL 
WHERE  FREEDOM  PUT  THE  SICKLE  IN,"   - 

"WHAT  NAME?"  ASKED  THE  PREACHER, 

"GOD  KNOWS,"  THEY  SAID.  ... 

THE  LIGHT-HOUSE, 

"AND  THEN,  AS  IF  THE  GOLDEN-HEAD 
WERE  SHAKING  UP  ITS  FEATHER-BED," 

"  UNTIL  GOD'S  BROAD  HORIZONS  RAN, — 
THE  CIRCLING  BROTHERHOOD  OF  MAN!" 

"FROM  HALLOWEEN  TO  CHRISTMAS-TIDE!"     - 

'  HE  SANG.     THE  DEBTOR'S  DUNGEON  DOOR, 

SWUNG  BACKWARD  ON  ITS  HINGE  OF  RUST," 


37 
38 


44 
46 


52 
53 
59 

63 
64 

66 

68 
69 

70 


ILL  US  TRA  TIONS.  XI 

POOR  BRON  RHUDDYN,"  -        71 

THE  POST-RIDER  OK  MY  BOYHOOD,"   -  -        73 

THE  BULL-DOG  BRIDGES  GROWL  AND  GROWL, 

FOREVER  AT  THE  HERALD'S  HEEL,"          -  -            -                     79 


ON  TIME!" 


81 


"A    HAND    HAS    PUT    THOSE   LEAVES    ASIDE, 

Lo,  AUGUST  LILIES  LIGHT  THE  DAY!" 
A  MISSION  BELL  WITHOUT  A  MISSION, 

"  POUR    OUT,   YE    GOBLETS,   FAR    AND    NEAR, 

YOUR    GRAND    MELODIOUS    IRON    FLOOD,"  89 

"YE    BLOSSOMS    OF    THE    FURNACE    FIRES, 

YE   IRON    TULIPS    ROCK    AND    SWING,"  91 

THE  EVENING  STAR,  -        94 

"AND    THEN    IN    BLISS    THE    BEVY    SAT, 

AND    ALL    IN    CONCERT    STRANGELY    MUTE, 

WITH    ROASTING    EARS    WE    PLAYED    THE    FLUTE,"  -  99 

A  GLIMPSE  OF  SPRING,    -  -       I03 

"I    HEAR    THE   BEES*  SMALL    HUM-BOOK'S    DRONE,"  -  -         IO4 

"THE    GREAT    BLACK    CAULDRON    BUBBLING    SLOW,"         -  -         IO5 

"I    SEE   A    LANTERN    BOLDLY    SWINGING, 

I    HEAR    ITS    BEARER    BRAVELY    SINGING,"  -  -         IO8 

NOVEMBER,  -  IO9 

SPRING  WORKMAN,  - 

MT.  TAMALPAIS,   -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -119 


xi  i  ILL  USTRA  TIONS. 

"WHERE  GRIM  SIERRA  SHOWS  HER  TEETH,"    -  I2o 
SEQUOIAS,               ....                        -----       121 

HOUSE  OF  REFUGE,                      .           ,  -           -           -      123 

AN  OFFING,                       -           -           -           _  _           _           -124 

A  FARM-YARD,      -                                     _  I2t 
HAYING     -                                                . 


-           -  -      129 

"WHO    GOES    THERE?"       -._._.  I3j 

FARMERS'  MEDALLION,      -  I37 

"AND    EMPTY    AS    A   BROKEN    HEART,"      -  145 

THE  SUN-DIAL,      -                                     _  j^g 
SWEET  HOME,       -                 .........       I55 

"Oil,   WORLD    SO    UTTERLY    ALONE!"        -  T6o 


DULCE  DOMUM. 


THE    SUN    THAT    NEVER    SETS. 


ON  some  long  day  of  June  take  a  terrestrial  globe  with 
all  the  equipments  for  measuring  the  days,  the  nights 
and  the  twilights;  the  route  of  the  shadow  and  the  sun;  for 
catching  Everywhere  in  the  fine  web  of  lines  and  parallels. 
Find  Alaska  whence  Campbell's  doleful  wolf  has  been  rais 
ing  its  "long  howl"  for  a  life-time.  You  are  not  looking 
beyond  the  border  where  floats  the  Flag.  You  have  not 
gone  from  home. 

Now  turn  the  globe  until  Alaska  is  precisely  at  the  sun 
set-line,  then  cross  the  continent  with  your  fore-finger  to 
the  coast  of  Maine.  It  is  sunrise  and  the  globe  has  not 
moved  at  all.  At  the  same  instant  closing  day  in  Alaska, 
opening  day  in  Maine,  it  is  one  country  and  one  sun. 

Of  old,  San  Francisco  was  at  the  Western  edge  of  this 
eminent  domain,  but  now  it  is  as  far  from  Alaska  as  it  is 
from  the  singing  pines  of  our  farthest  East,  and  by  this 
measurement  in  the  centre  of  the  United  States.  The  wis 
dom  of  purchasing  Alaska  has  been  doubted,  but  lo,  its 
utility  is  made  manifest  at  last.  It  is  a  spot  whereon  the 


DULCE   DOMUM. 


mighty  sun  may  halt  a  moment  just  as  he  makes  a  splendid 
lift  above  the  woods  and  fields  of  Maine.  We  hear  some 
thing  now  and  then  of  the  British  music  whose 

"Morning  drum  beats  round  the  world." 

I  think  it  is  a  grander  thing  to  say  the  Sun  can  never  bid 
good-night  to  this  Great  Republic.  >,•> 


THE  SUN  THAT  NEVER  SETS. 


i 

T~\ACIFIC'S  waters  turn  to  wine, 

The  ripe  red  sun  is  glowing  down, 

With  Orient  pomp  the  gloomy  pine 
Wears  rubies  in  its  plumy  crown 
And  shadows  on  its  column  brown. 

II. 

With  click  and  stroke  of  slender  oar 
The  fishers  time  their  homeward  turn, 

And  pulling  for  Aleutian  shore, 

Where  dusky  red  the  watch-fires  burn, 
They  trail  their  glittering  spoils  astern 

III. 

I  see  them  slide,  as  petrels  skim 
The  glassy  scallops  of  the  deep, 

I  hear  their  wild   barbaric  hymn 

Re-sung  by  pale-faced  cliff  and  steep, 
As  children  sing  themselves  to  sleep. 


DULCE   DOMUM. 

IV. 

"Good-night"  in  words  from  loving  lips, 
"  Good-night,  good-night,"  the  girls  reply, 

"  Good-night  "  from  canon's  cold  eclipse, 
"  Good-night  "  again  from  skiff  and  sky, 
And  day  is  dead  and  voices  die. 

V. 

The  flickering  sea-birds  seek  the  crag 

In  dotted  lines  of  hazy  white, 
The  Outpost  lowers  the  Stellar  Flag 

Damp  with  the  mists  of  sheeted  night, 

A  gray  and  ghostly  Carmelite. 

VI. 

'Tis  sunset  on  Alaska's  rocks, 

Aleutian   Isle  and  Behring's  Bay, 

'Tis  sunrise  where  Atlantic  shocks 

The  coast  of  Maine  in  rugged  play 
And  domes  of  forest  shed  the  day. 

VII. 

Sunrise  in  Maine!     The  starry  wing 

Takes  flight  at  morning  gun  and  glow, 


THE    SUN    THAT  NEVER   SETS. 

From  tapering  mast  salutes  the  King 

Whose  parting  foot-prints  plainly  show 

Alaska  land  a  breath  ago 

And  burning  yet  like  blood  on  snow. 


HOW    STIRS    MY    HEART   TO    THINK    THIS    LAND 
BOUND    IN    LONG    DAY-TIME's    YELLOW    ZONE, 

MAINE    AND    ALASKA    HAND    IN    HAND, 

THE    SELF    SAME    HOUR    BEHOLDS    IN    ONE 
A    RISING    AND    A    SETTING    SUN  ! 


VIII. 

I  hear  the  axemen's  clock-tick  beat, 
I  hear  the  twang  of  breakfast  horn, 

The  Yankee  Doodle  in  the  street 
And  Yankee  Doodle  in  the  corn; 


DULCE  DOMUM. 

One  day  not  dead,  another  born, 
Good-night  is  married  to  Good-morn! 

IX. 

All  hail,  thou  Sun  magnificent ; 

And  hail,  ye  Flag  and   Flame  well  met 
From  Orient  to  Occident ! 

These  colors,  O  great  Light,  are  wet 

With  splendors  of  thy  golden  set 

And  Yesterday  is  lingering  yet. 

X. 

Strong  as  thou  art  and  swift  as  strong 
It  takes  thee  thirteen  hours  to  march 

Grand  Rounds  from   noon  to  noon  along 
The  azure  of  the  Federal  arch  — 
Majestic  sweep  of  boulevards, 
The  realm  and  route  of  traveled  stars  — 
That  spans,  as  rainbows  span  the  showers, 
All  oaks  of  hearts  and  hopes  of  flowers, 
As  thoughts  untold   may  thrill  and  throng 
One  mighty  syllable  of  song. 

XI. 

How  stirs  my  heart  to  think  this  Land 
Bound   in  long  day-time's  yellow  zone, 


THE   SUN    THAT  NEVER   SETS. 

Maine  and  Alaska  hand   in   hand, 

The  self-same  hour  beholds  in  one 
A  rising  and  a  setting  sun  ! 

XII. 

It  brings  my  fancy  to  the  knee 
And  kindles  up  my  soul  to  see 

Him   play  upon   meridian  lines 
That  string  the  globe  as  harps  are  strung; 

To  watch  each  fibre  as  it  shines, 
And  hear,  distinct  as  if  it  rung, 
The  Music  of  the  Union   flung 

From  this  celestial  instrument. 

Perhaps  an  angel  choir  has  lent 
Some  Israfeel  of  rarest  powers 

To  help  this  harper  of  the  Lord, 

And  grandly  sing,  word  after  word  : 
This  land  is  mine,  is  yours,  is  Ours. 


DULCE   DOMUM. 


?ss  f^h 


THE    NEW  YORK  -NORTH  WOODS." 


BORN    in    a   wilderness    that,    I    am    glad    to    write,    is    a 
wilderness    still,   but    with    such    clearings    of    loveliness 
and    such    elegancies   of    life    as   would    never    be    sought    in 
regions    where    a    ride    of    ten    miles    will    plunge    you    into 
forests,  with  the  cry  of  panthers  and  the  howl  of  wolves  to 
wak£  you  from  your  "beauty  sleep";  or  the  leafless  branches 
upon  a  lifted   head   in    the   edge  of   an   opening  to   set   your 
heart  off   in   a  gallop  ;    or  the  broad   tread   of  an   oscillating 
bear  to  set  the  fallen  leaves  and  limbs  crackling  like  a  hem 
lock    fire.     It   is   a   region   that   has   had    tragedies   and   love- 
makings  and  adventure.     It  has  always  been  a  realm  to  me 
of  strange  mystery,  startling  possibility  and  wonderful  fasci 
nation.     I  love  its  tangled  trails,  its  tough  climbs,  its  mighty 
recesses,  its  Druidical  rocks  and  its  endless  march  of  woods 
towards  Horicon  and  Champlain.     It  is  not  a  desert  because 
unsown,  but  a  wilderness  because  everything  grows  and  lives 
and  does  "  at  its  own  sweet  will."     Ah,  a  rare  place  to  knit 
"care's    ravelled    sleeve,"    fight    mosquitoes,    catch    fish    and 
live  a  life  of  busy  idleness. 


JO  DULCE  DOMUM. 

It  was  in  that  Wonderland  I  first  saw  the  weazened  old 
printing-press.  It  would  have  done  Poor  Richard's  heart 
good  to  ink  it  and  work  it  and  then  order  raisins  and  water 
for  dinner.  It  is  more  than  a  century  since  Dr.  Franklin 
stood  up  with  a  glass  of  Sparkling  Delaware  — water  in  his 
hand  and  drank  "Success  to  printing."  It  was  the  twin  of 
that  wilderness  monster  the  convivial  spirit  was  toasting. 

Now  take  the  great  quadruple  cylinder,  the  mingled  brains 
of  a  thousand  men,  that  springs  to  the  work  with  arms  of 
flashing  steel,  that  snows  down  sheets  like  flakes  in  Northern 
winter,  that  strikes  across  the  continents  and  shines  like 
electric  light  from  the  East  even  unto  the  West.  THIS  is 
what  Dr.  Franklin  drank  to  without  knowing  it.  A  century 
ago  indeed  !  It  is  a  thousand  years  from  press  to  Press. 


THE    NORTH   WOODS. 


"\  YEW  YORK,  what  imperial  acres  are  these 
l  \     Where  great  cities  in  camps  shed  the  light  of  their  lamps 

From  Atlantic  to  Lake  like  a  necklace  of  fire, 

Constellations  of  homes  shining  clearer  and   nigher 
As  when  star-lighted  waters  are  stirred  by  the  breeze. 
And  to  think,  oh,  Excelsior,  five  millions  strong 

With  thy  five  thousand  presses  all   playing  as  one, 
And  thy  close-printed  sheets  flung  abroad  as  great  fleets 

Roll   their  clouds  of  white  canvas  and  shadow  the  sun 
That  locked   in  thy  breast  like  a  Dorian  song, 

Is  a  shaggy  old  wilderness  growling  with   lairs 

Where  the  catamounts  wail,  and  big  "  majors  "  of  bears 
With  their  plantigrade  feet  wipe  the  blackberries  in, 
And  the  lace-sifted  twilights  of  forest  begin, 

And  the  quick  antlers  lift  where  the  quick  waters  drift, 
And  the  speckled  trout  flash  in   the  crystalline  coid 
All  sprinkled  with  carmine  and  dusted  with  gold  — 
Ah,  w^hat  fish  but  a  trout  could  the  Saviour  have  made 
His  treasurer  there  when  the  tribute  was  paid?  — 


A  BIG  "MAJOR"  OK  BEAKS. 


THE   NORTH    WOODS. 

That  this  Dukedom  of  wilds  could  be  hid   in  the  heart 
Of  New  York  and  not  feel  the  full  throb  of  its  mart  ? 


J!E      • 

MzS3S5s=^I-^ 


._ 


In  that  wilderness  selvedge,  a  villager's  Rest 

Now  empty  and  gone,  by  an  orchard  once  stood, 


I4  DULCE  DOMUM. 

Where  the  robins  of  old  reared  young  robbers  by  brood, 

And  beyond  it  a  house,  and  the  charm  of  the  place, 
And  as  guiltless  of  stairs  as  a  ground-sparrow's  nest  : 

A  mossy-browed  house  that  was  eyed   like  a  face, 
With  a  window  each  side  its  wide  mouth  of  a  door, 
And  the  print  of  a  thumb  and  four  fingers  it  bore 
On  a  panel  or  two,  like  a  nobleman's  crest ; 

Ah,  as  fine  and  as  clear  as  a  sun-lit  vignette 

Is  the  office  whence  came  3Tf)P 


AH,  AS    FINE    AND    AS    CLEAR    AS    A    SUN-LIT    VIGNETTE 

IS    THE    OFFICE    WHENCE    CAME    THE    BLACK    RlVEK    GAZETTE. 


THE  NORTH  WOODS.  I 

And  the  editor,  printer  and  pressman  are  dead, 
And  the  "  devil  "  withal.     I  have  seen  their  low  bed 

Where  the  Lombardies  sweep  the  sky  clear  of  a  cloud. 
As  in  life  the  one  jacket  could  button  them  round, 
And  with  one  hat  at  once  they  all  could  be  crowned, 

So  in  death  they  were  laid  in  one  coffin  and  shroud. 

I  stood  in  that  room  when  a  roundabout  boy, 

All  my  pockets  a  jumble  with  jewsharp  and  joy, 

With  small  nibbles  of  sugar  and  fish-hooks  and  strings, 

A  new  Barlow  knife,  alley  marbles  and  "things," 

But  my  heart  gave  a  tumble  and  I  gave  a  start, 

At  the  grim   iron  prince  of  the  house  of  Black  Art  : 

At  the  Ethiop  press  with  one  elbow  a-crook, 

And  its  rigid  round  arm   and  its  sinister  look, 

And  its  hand-organ  crank  and  its  fire-dogs  of  legs, 

And  its  rations  of  ink  in  a  couple  of  kegs, 

And  the  eagle  that  caught  its  brass  claws  in  the  thing, 

And,  made  captive  for  life,  could  never  take  wing. 

Tallow  candles  stood  round,  lank,  languid  and  limp, 

Too  dim   for  an  angel  and  too  light  for  an   imp  ; 

Maps  of  regions  of  darkness  benighted  the  place 

But  it  shone  through  the  past  with  an  exquisite  grace. 

And  the  boy  gazed  about  with  a  silent  surprise 
For  nothing  was  white  but  the  whites  of  his  eyes. 


Z6  DULCE   DOMUM. 

And  the  arm  of  the  printer  was  dingy  and  long, 

And  the  arm  of  the  pressman  was  shaded  and  strong. 

How  that  press  came  to  life  if  I  only  could  tell, 

But  who  ever  drew  up  in  the  bucket  the  star 
That  he  saw  as  he  leaned  on  the  curb,  in  the  well 

When  the  hour  was  high  noon  and  the  night  was  afar  ? 

Give  the  roller  a  run  and  the  play  is  begun  : 
Up  with  frisket  and  tympan  and  on  with  the  sheet, 
Down  with   frisket  and  tympan  in  regular  beat. 

Then  a  turn  at  the  rounce  and   two  pulls  at  the  bar 
And  the  platen  comes  down  on  the  face  of  the  page 
With  its  lines  in  relief  like  the  wrinkles  of  age  ; 
Then  a  whirl  of  the  crank  and  a  groan  and  a  clank, 
And  the  words  regimental  in  justified  rank 

To  a  late  resurrection  reluctantly  rise 

And  stand  before  men  in  their  eloquent  guise. 

Then  the  sturdy-legged  desk  where  the  Editor  sat 
With  his  hand   in  his  hair  and  his  mail  in  his  hat, 
And  the  inkstand  beplumed  as  with  ferns  in  a  fen 
As  if  he  raised  geese  from  the  slip  —  of  the  pen. 
But  the  toil  and  the  moil  were  brightened  and  past 
For  he  made  a  man  Member  of  Congress  at  last, 
And  honors  were  easy — the   Member  made  him. 
And  he  said   in  his  heart  that  dipped  candles  were  dim, 


A        SPOT        IN    THE    WILDERNESS. 


1 8  DULCE   DO  MUM. 

And  he  bought  him  a  lamp,  raised  a  "  devil  "  to  light  it, 

And  discovered  a  wrong  and  wrote  leaders  to  right  it. 

Oh,  dear  old   Gazette,  not  good   night  but  good  morn, 

For  I  hear  in   the  twang  of  thy  carrier's  horn 

The  prelude  to  bugles  right  royally  blown 

That  proclaim  for  the   Press  an  estate  of  its  own. 

How  my  heart  playing  Hebrew  reads  back  to  the  time 
When  Otsego's  fair  vale  was  a  magical  clime; 
Not  that  Cooper's  creations  are  lingering  there, 
But  'twas  thence  that  my  wonderful  caravan  came, 
Books  of  beasts  and  of  birds  in  their  covers  of  blue  — 
All  the  rest  of  the  pages  were  read  through  and  through— 
With  the  tiger  in  stripe  and  the  leopard  in  star 
As  if  they  had  torn  Freedom's  banner  in  two, 
And  the  lion  bewigged  like  a  barrister's  bar, 
And  with  H.  AND  E.  PHINNEY'S  own  imprint  of  fame. 
All  the  s's  are  f's  and  the  catch-words  below 
To  lend  me  a  lift  as  I  eagerly  go, 
And  glad  as  a  bee  in  a  meadow  of  clover 
I  give  them  a  glance,  wet  my  thumb  and  turn  over. 
More  bliss  blossomed  out  in  those  primers  of  old 
Than  in  volumes  of  vellum   in  crimson   and  gold. 

That  imp  of  a  press  grew  gigantic  and  grand 
And  startled  the  world  as  Atlantic  the  strand, 
And  I  stood  with  bare  brow  by  that  triumph  of  art 
When  the  breath  was  turned  on  and  the  iron-clad  heart 


SOME    WILDERNESS    WEATHER. 


20  DULCE   DOMUM. 

Of  the  ponderous  press  was  beginning  to  beat 
With  the  regular  tramp  of  a  troop  in   the  street, 
With  the  bending  of  springs  and  the  flutter  of  wings, 
And  swinging  of  lever  and  swaying  of  bar, 

And  the  running  of  cylinders  forward  and  back 

With  a  trundle  of  night  for  the  letter-paved   track, 
With  a  murmur  of  might  and  a  rumble  and  jar 
And  the  playing  of  pinion  and  tumble  of  wheel 
And  flitter  of  fingers  and  glitter  of  steel, 

To  and  fro,  up  and  down,  over  under  and  through, 
As  steady  and  true  the  magnificent  iron 
As  the  beat  of  chronometer  timing  Orion. 
And   I  thought,  with  no  press,  without  pulpit  or  post, 

With  no  English,  no  engine,  no  lightning  that  ran 
The  Celestial   Express  like  a  vanishing  ghost, 

That  Methuselah  died  when  a  very  young  man. 
When  the  sound  of  the  press  on  this  wilderness  broke, 
And  the  clock  was  just  ready  to  give  the  first  stroke, 

Upon  rudest  of  paper  dead-ashen  and  gray 
The  very  first  words  that  were  marshaled   in   print 
Was  "The  Freeman's  Own  Oath."    They  were  picking  the  flint 

Of  young  Liberty's  firelock  before  it  was  day  ! 
In  this  noontide,  the  shadows  rolled  up  at  our  feet, 

And  the  paper  dawned  white  as  a  field  of  fresh  snow, 
And  the  clock  striking  "twelve,"  the  old  Oath  we  repeat 

And  we   pass  it  along  to  the  ages  below. 


THE    CAPTAIN'S    DRUM. 


T^RIDAY,  the  twenty-first  of  April,  1775,  a  horseman  rode 
1  express  into  Enfield  Street,  Connecticut,  with  the  tidings 
from  Lexington  Green.  It  was  "  Lecture  day  "and  minister 
and  people  were  in  the  meeting-house.  Lieutenant  Isaac 
Kibbe,  the  tavern-keeper  who  dispensed  noggins  of  rum  as 
befitted  the  times,  procured  drum  and  drummer,  rudely  put 
an  end  to  the  devotions,  and  Major  Nathaniel  Terry,  a  fore 
father  of  General  Terry,  U.  S.  A.,  led  the  valiant  band  away. 
The  local  historian  reduces  my  Captain  Abbey  to  the  ranks. 

Twenty-three  years  after,  a  child  was  born  across  the 
street  from  the  meeting-house,  and  he  dwells  there  yet. 
They  had  nothing  against  the  boy  as  I  can  learn,  but  they 
gave  him  a  Bible  name  that  she  would  be  a  brave  and  reck 
less  mother  to  confer  upon  her  helpless  infant  in  these  later 
times,  for  they  called  him  uAholiab,"  and  the  child  grew 
apace,  furnished  me  with  this  historical  incident,  and  has 
lived  worthily  and  well  "even  unto  this  day." 

How  much  unrecorded  history,  unbound  and  tattered 
pages  of  our  national  annals,  is  hidden  away  in  the  tills  of 


22  DULCE   DOMUM. 

cedar  chests,  between  the  leaves  of  Family  Bibles,  Bunyan's 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  Baxter's  Saint's  Rest,  Fox's  Book  of  Mar 
tyrs,  dusty  old  Josephuses,  antiquated  old  almanacs  and  in 
feeble  old  memories,  we  shall  never  know.  But  the  historic 
treasure-trove  that  quest  or  chance  so  frequently  unearths 
compels  the  regret  that  the  knowledge  of  unnumbered  deeds 
of  virtue  and  of  valor  has  utterly  perished  from  the  earth. 

The  great  bells  of  centennial  clocks,  that  during  the  last 
ten  years  have  been  striking  round  the  land,  have  done  more 
and  better  than  to  "make  a  joyful  noise."  They  have  stimu 
lated  research  ;  they  have  startled  multitudes  with  the  truth 
that  commercial  values  do  not  attach  to  everything  exceeding 
precious;  they  have  quickened  dead  incidents;  they  have 
been  resurrection  bells. 


THE    CAPTAIN'S    DRUM. 


IN   Pilgrim  land  one  Sabbath  day 
The  winter  lay  like  sheep  about 
The  ragged  pastures  mullein-gray  ; 

The  April  sun  shone  in  and  out, 
The  showers  swept  by  in  fitful  flocks, 
And  eaves  ticked  fast  like  mantel  clocks. 

II. 

And  now  and  then  a  wealthy  cloud 

Would  wear  a  ribbon  broad  and  bright, 

And  now  and  then  a  winged  crowd 
Of  shining  azure  flash  in  sight ; 

So  rainbows  bend  and  blue-birds  fly 

And  violets  show  their  bits  of  sky. 

III. 

To  Enfield  church  throng  all  the  town 

In  quilted  hood  and  bombazine, 

23 


24  DULCE  DOM  CM. 

In  beaver  hat  with  flaring  crown 

And  quaint  Vandyke  and  victorine, 
And  buttoned  boys  in  roundabout 
From  calyx  collars  blossom  out: 

IV. 
Bandanas  wave  their  feeble  fire 

And  foot-stoves  tinkle  up  the  aisle, 
A  gray-haired   Elder  leads  the  choir 

And  girls  in  linsey-woolsey  smile. 
So  back  to  life  the  beings  glide 
Whose  very  graves  have  ebbed  and  died. 

V. 

One  hundred  years  have  waned  and  yet 
We  call  the  roll,  and  not  in  vain, 

For  one  whose  flint-lock  musket  set 

The  echoes  wild  round   Fort  Duquesne, 

And  swelled  the  battle's  powder-smoke 

Ere  Revolution's  thunders  woke. 

VI. 

Lo,  Thomas  Abbey  answers  "  Here  !  " 
Within  the  dull  long-metre  place  ; 


THE    CAPTAIN'S  DRUM  25 


That  day  upon  the  parson's  ear 

And  trampling  down  his  words  of  grace 
A  horseman's  gallop  rudely  beat 
Along  the  splashed  and  empty  street. 

VII. 

The  rider  drew  his  dripping  rein 

And  then  a  letter  wasp-nest  gray 
That  ran  : 


Grfna  iea=coati  naa  a 

</ 


Ten  little  words  to  tell  the  deed. 

VIII. 

The  Captain  read,  struck  out  for  home 
The  old  quickstep  of  battle  born, 

Slung  on  once  more  a  battered  drum 
That  bore  a  painted  unicorn, 

Then  right-about,  as  whirls  a  torch 

He  stood  before  the  sacred  porch  ;  — 

IX. 
And  then  a  murmuring  of  bees 

Broke  in  upon  the  house  of  prayer, 


26  DULCE  DOMUM. 

And  then  a  wind-song  swept  the  trees, 
And  then  a  snarl  from  wolfish  lair, 
And  then  a  charge  of  grenadiers, 
And  then  a  flight  of  drum-beat  cheers. 

X. 

So  drum  and  doctrine  rudely  blent, 

The  casements  rattled  strange  accord, 

No  mortal  knew  what  either  meant, 
Twas  double-drag  and  Holy  Word, 
Thus  saith  the  drum  and  thus  the  Lord. 

The  Captain  raised  so  wild  a  rout 

He  drummed  the  congregation  out ! 

XI. 

The  people  gathered  round  amazed, 

The  soldier  bared  his  head  and  spoke, 
And  every  sentence  burned  and  blazed 

As  trenchant  as  a  sabre-stroke  : 
"  'Tis  time  to  pick  the  flint  to-day, 
"To  sling  the  knapsack  and  away  — 
"The  Green  of  Lexington  is  red 

"  With  British  red-coats,  brothers'  blood  ! 
"  In  rightful  cause  the  earliest  dead 

"  Are  always  best  beloved  of  God. 


THE    CAPTAIN'S  DRUM. 


27 


TWAS    DOUBLE-DRAG    AND    HOLY    \VOKD, 
THUS    S  UTH    THE    DRUM    AND    THUS    THE    LORD. 


28  DULCE  DO  MUM. 

"  Mark  time  !     Now  let  the  march  begin  ! 
"All  bound  for  Boston  fall  right  in  !" 

XII. 

Then  rub-a-dub  the  drum  jarred  on, 
The  throbbing  roll  of  battle  beat ! 

"  Fall  in,  my  men  ! "  and  one  by  one, 

They  rhymed  the  tune  with  heart  and  feet, 

And  so  they  made  a  Sabbath  march 

To  glory  'neath  the  elm-tree  arch. 

XIII. 

The  Continental  line  unwound 

Along  the  church-yard's  breathless  sod, 

And  holier  grew  the  hallowed  ground 
Where  Virtue  slept  and  Valor  trod, 

Two  hundred  strong  that  April  day 

They  rallied  out  and  marched  away. 

XIV. 

Brigaded  there  at  Bunker  Hill 

Their  names  are  writ  on  Glory's  page, 

The  brave  old  Captain's  Sunday  drill 
Has  drummed  its  way  across  the  Age. 


HEARTS    AND    HEARTHS. 


THERE  was  a  time  when  hearths  and  hearts 
In  rural  life  were  counterparts  — 
The  only  neutral  ground  of  grace 

In  all  this  troubled  world.     Would   I 

Could   paint  the  homely  picture  right, 
The  low-browed  dwelling's  altar-place 

Forever  lost,  forever  nigh  — 
Paint  the  divergent  rays  that  shed 

Along  the  dark  their  lines  of  light 
Like  nimbus  round  a  sacred  head. 
There,  sturdy  fire-dogs,  legs  apart, 
Upheld   that  glowing  work  of  art 
The  beech-and-maple  kitchen  fire, 
The  twinkling,  crinkling,  creeping  fire 
That  gives  a  flash  and  shows  a  spire  ; 
One  instant  builds  a  phenix  nest, 
Another,  mounts  a  gleaming  crest, 
A  feu-de-joie,  it  shoots  a  jet, 

Up  comes  a  crimson  minaret ; 

29 


30  DULCE   DO  MUM. 

The  flame  is  fanned,  the  blaze  is  blown, 
You  hear  a  mill-flume's  undertone  — 
The  rattling,  battling,  roaring  fire 
With  flapping  flags  and  lapping  tongues 
That  purrs  and  burrs  with  lion's  lungs, 
Expands  the  ring  of  kitchen  chairs 
And  brightens  up  the  brow  of  cares. 

The  coals  of  rubies  fall  apart, 

Lo,  secrets  of  a  burning  heart : 

The  embers  show  a  Valentine, 

Dead  faces  smile,  lost  castles  shine 

And  pansies  blow  and  eglantine, 

And  old  gold  beads  and  rings  of  price 

And  buds  and  birds  of  Paradise. 

A  soft  red  twilight  charms  the  room 

And  fills  it  like  a  faint  perfume. 

There,  couples  sat  the  night  away 

Whist  as  a  button-hole  bouquet  — 

Some  russets  roasting  in  a  row, 

Some  talking  flames  that  "told  of  snow," 

Some  cider  that  her  hands  had  drawn, 
Two  pairs  of  lips,  a  single  cup, 
Both  kissed  the  brim  and  drank  it  up. 

The  candle  has  its  night-cap  on, 


HEARTS  AND   HEARTHS. 


FOR    UP    THE    SWEETHEART    SPRANG,    AND    LAID 
A    MUFFLING    FINGER    ON    THE    BELL 
LEST    THE    SHRILL    STEEL    SHOULD    STRIKE    AND    TELL. 


DULCE   DO  MUM. 

The  very  embers  gone  to  bed  — 
Who  shall  record  what  either  said  ? 
Or  who  so  eloquent  can  tell 
How  early  apples  used  to  smell  ? 
The  woodsy,  evanescent  taste 
Of  berries  plucked  with  eager  haste 


AND    FINGERS    TOUCHED    AND    FANCY    WOKE  — 

As  through  the  meadow  lands  they  crept, 
And  fingers  touched  and  fancy  woke 

And  never  slumbered,  never  slept 
Till  Day  on  life's  sweet  dreamings  broke? 


HEARTS  AND  HEARTHS.  33 


The  pious  clock  a  murmur  made, 

Held  up  both  hands  before  its  face, 

Not  meant  so  much  for  twelve  o'clock 
But  just  astonishment  and  shock 

At  such  a  want  of  modest  grace, 
For  up  the  sweetheart  sprang  and   laid 

A  muffling  finger  on  the  bell 

Lest  the  shrill  steel  should  strike  and  tell, 
And  gave  the  hands  a  backward  whirl, 
Took  time  "on  tick,"  the  reckless  girl! 
Where  is  the  lover  ?     Old  and  lone. 
And  where  the  maiden  ?     Gray  and  gone. 
I  read  the  dim  Italic  stone  : 

A  willow  tree,  a  "  Sacred  To  "- 
The  sad  old  story  ever  new, 
For  all  the  twain  the  world  moves  on. 

I  saw  a  spider  drift  about 

Upon  the  sun-shot  morning  air, 
As  if  like  thistle  blossoms  blown 
At  random,  desolate  and  strown, 
Now  here  and  there  and  everywhere, 
And  all  the  while  that  aeronaut 
Was  paying  nature's  life-line  out ! 
I  traced  it  by  the  nervous  thread 


34  DULCE  DOMUM. 


Back  to  its  little  silken  lair 

Safe  hid  in  a  verbena  bed. 
It  never  cut  that  cable  fine 
But  felt  its  home  along  the  line. 

And  then  I  thought,  and  then  I  said 
Our  life-line  is  the  love  of  home, 
Oh,  make  it  fast  where'er  you  roam  — 

Amid  the  rough  world's  rolling  strife 

It  is  the  anchorage-  of  life. 


A    LAMENT    FOR   ADAM. 


I   AM  always  bewailing  the  desolate  fate 
Of  the  primal  old  Crusoe  who  led  off  the  race 
With  no  boots  and   no  boyhood,  no  swing  on  the  gate, 
What  could   Paradise  be  with  its  garden  of  grace 


A    DAY    DREAM. 
35 


36  DULCE  DO  MUM, 

To  a  being  who  never  had  felt  himself  grow 

But  had  stood  up  and  lived  like  the  Parian  snow 

At  the  touch  of  the  sculptor  ?     Lone  Nobody's  son 

With  a  world  to  himself  and  a  census  of  one. 

Lo,  a  man  with  no  story  to  linger  behind, 

If  we  only  except  the  Darwinian  kind  — 

Lo,  an  orphan  by  birth  though  no  creature  had  died, 

Or  been  born,  wooed   or  wed  as  bridegroom   or  bride. 

I  look  up  the  gray  eons  with  wondering  thought 

Where  humanity's  Duke  in  his  nakedness  strode, 
All  uncrowned  and  untraveled,  unlettered,  untaught, 

With  no  fire  but  the  sun  and  the  lair  for  abode. 
Not  a  word  could  he  write,  not  a  breath  could   he  read, 
It  was  Adam,  " /its  X  mark"  to  the  lease  and  the  deed. 
Ah,  the  hermit  of  Eden  could  never  have  dreamt 

That  his  boys  would  wear  pinions  forever  unfurled 

And  away  down  the  line  would  track  up  the  round  world 
With  their  highways  and  thoughtways,  as  a  comet  unkempt, 
A  fourth  Fury  of  fire  by  Omnipotence  driven, 
Dishevels  her  hair  on  the  bosom  of  Heaven  ; 
Would  have  turnpiked  the  planet  and  graded  the  sky, 
Swept  meridian  lines  in  the  glance  of  an  eye 
With  their  flashes  of  lightning  and  footprints  of  ink, 
Till  the  lumbering  globe  was  beginning  to  think  ! 

The  world  was  all  ready  for  bridegroom  and  bride 


A   LAMENT  FOR   ADAM.  37 

When  Adam  awoke  from  his  wonderful  swoon 
And  Creation's  fair  crown  lay  alive  by  his  side  ; 

For  a  trinket  of  silver,  the  honey-bee's  moon 
Hung  low  in  the  azure,  a  gift  from  the  Lord, 

For  her  garments,  bright  emerald  garnished  the  trees, 

And  her  flounces  and  aprons  slow  swung  in  the  breeze, 


And  the  violets  caught  her  blue  glance  from  the  sward  ; 
With  the  flush  of  new  life  she  just  lifted  her  head 
And  the  roses  of  York  blushed  a  Lancaster  red, 
And  the  whispers  ran  round  like  the  rustle  of  leaves 
And  the  young  woods  of  Paradise  laughed  in  their  sleeves. 

Now  Eden  to  Earth  doth  this  legacy  leave  : 
The  month  of  that  wedding  of  emerald  ray 

Shall  wear  through  the  cycles  the  colors  of  Eve, 
Shall  belong  to  all  ages  forever  and  aye, 

With  its  birds  in  full  song  and  its  breezes  in  tune, 

So  she  left  her  best  clothes  to  Magnificent  June. 


DULCE   DO  MUM. 


KVE  S    ORCHARD. 


-DON'T    GIVE    UP   THE    SHIP." 


MAY  30TH,  1776.     MAY  SOTH,  1876. 

ONE  hundred  years  ago  this  blessed  day 
The  schooner  Franklin  grounded  on  a  bar, 
And  British  boats  swarmed  down  upon  the  prey 

As  thick  as  bees  where  clover  blossoms  are. 
She  was  a  fighting  schooner,  and  the  sky 

Was  clouded  up  with  battle  near  and  far, 
And  like  a  flame  the  crimson  flag  did  fly- 
She  had  her  choice  to  strike  it  or  to  die 
They  took  the  hapless  schooner  fore  and  aft, 
With  whips  of  living  fire  they  lashed  the  craft, 
'Twas  raining  iron  and  'twas  lightening  steel, 

And  cannon  thundered  through  the  heavy  weather, 
'Twas  crash  and  flash — 'twas  shout  and  whirl  and  wheel, 
And  splintered  fire  and  muskets'  rattling  peal, 

And  cheers  and  curses  went  aloft  together. 
Redder  than  sunset  was  the  Franklin's  deck, 
And  many  a  sea-dog  lay  a  shattered  wreck. 

39 


4o  DULCE   DOMUM. 

They  brought  the  ship  about  until  she  wore 
Nearer  hell's  port  than  she  had  sailed  before. 


The  schooner's  Captain  bore  an  unknown  name 
That  never  had  been  heard  in  song  or  story, 

And  yet  the  gallant  WINGFORD'S  heart  of  flame 
Should  light  a  ballad  of  Centennial  glory. 

One  hundred  years  ago  this  day  he  died, 

One  hundred  years  ago  this  day  he  cried 

Amid  the  throe  and  tempest  of  despair, 

"The  FLAG,  my  men,  we'll  keep  it  floating  there  f" 

Splashed  like  a  wine-press,  wounded,  sore-beset, 

Swath  after  swath  he  cut  right  through  the  throng, 
On  every  royal  jacket  that  he  met 

He  slashed  a  scarlet  chevron  good  and  strong ; 
He  cleared  a  place  to  die  with  swinging  stroke, 
His  cutlass  clanged  upon  the  slippery  oak, 
He  fell,  and  gave  one  upward  lightning  glance 
That  shone  an  instant  like  the  flash  of  lance, 
For  there  aloft  the  fiery  flag  yet  swung 
And  lapped  the  murky  cloud,  a  crimson  tongue  — 
He  rallied  up  his  soul  and  voice  and  cried 
"  Oh,  don't  give  up  the  ship  ! "  and  so  he  died 


>DON'rf   GIVE    UP    THE    SHIP:1 


ON'    EVERY    KOYAL   JACKET    THAT    HE    .MET, 

HE   SLASHED    A   SCARLET   CHEVRON    GOOD    AND    STRONG. 


4  2  DULCE   DO  MUM. 

If  that  be  dying,  and  the  sailors  heard 
And  took  the  Captain  at  his  latest  word. 

Great  Heart,  good-night !    Death  made  thee  commodore. 

And  yet  no  orders  for  an  hundred  years  ! 
Why  name  this  man  a  century  ashore  ? 

I'll  tell  you  why.    They  could  have  spared  their  tears 
Who  mourned  him  dead.     He  is  not  dead  at  all, 
He  was  not  made  to  smother  in  a  pall. 
Men  are  alive  who  might  have  heard  him  speak 
Amid  the  thunders  of  the  Chesapeake 
Those  very  accents,  "  don't  give  up  the  ship!" 
That  rang  again  from  Lawrence'  dying  lip. 

By  some  new  name  here,  there  and  everywhere, 
The  soul  of  courage  breathes  the  living  air. 
One  noble  deed  may  bless  the  race,  and  when, 
As  myriads  now  asleep,  men  die  for  men 
And  Liberty  and  God,  the  deed  inspires 
And  kindles  and  exults  like  prairie  fires, 

Until,  horizon  to  horizon  broad, 
It  makes  day's  camp-fire  in  an  utter  night 
And  doubles  noon-time  to  intenser  light. 

It  wilts  the  flowers  indeed  and  glooms  the  sod, 


"DON'T   GIVE    UP    THE   SHIP."  43 

But  one  sweet  May  will  end  the  sad  eclipse 
And  flowers  will  worship  with  their  scarlet  lips 

And  lilies  pray  and  make  all  right  with  God. 
And  so  our  vast  encampments  of  the  Blue 

May  have  their  marching  orders  any  day, 
And  pass  the  world  again  in  grand  review, 

Defend  the  right  and  hold  the  wrong  at  bay  — 
May  haunt  with  valor  some  poor  halting  heart 
Till   seeming  clods  to  instant  manhood  start, 
Cast  off,  as  lightnings  flash,  their  long  disguise 
And  stand  transfigured  to  our  earnest  eyes. 


44 


DULCE  DO  MUM. 


- 


LINCOLN    AND    HIS    PSALM. 


TO  lay  hands  upon  Lincoln's  classic  text  for  any  sake 
may  be  presumption,  but,  in  my  desire  to  show  how 
near  akin  are  the  Maker,  who  is  the  poet,  and  the  Doer,  I 
have  been  guilty  of  this  thing.  Whoever  rises  to  the  dig 
nity  of  great  truth  or  grand  achievement,  a  solemn  earnest 
ness  shed  upon  him  like  a  glory  out  of  Heaven,  is  so  much 
a  poet  that,  without  his  knowledge,  his  words  strike  into 
the  stately  Epic  march  or  spring  away  in  Lyric  flight. 

And  so,  by  jostling  a  word  here  and  there  out  of  its 
rightful  place  in  the  compact  line,  the  utterances  of  the 
poetic  soul  are  easily  adjusted  to  poetic  semblance.  The 
grandest  moods  in  men,  like  the  royal  scenes  in  nature, 
where  each  grows  salient  as  if  it  would  touch  the  Heavens, 
are  never  merry.  There  is  no  laughter  in  the  Mountain 
that  robed  in  the  ermine  of  immortal  winters  stands  up  to 
judge  the  World.  But  the  brook  at  his  foot  idles  on  with 
a  childish  laugh  and  is  forgotten. 

To  me,  Lincoln's  strong  and  rugged  face  was  always  a 
poem  in  itself.  There  were  flashes  of  wit  and  flickers  of 

45 


4  6  DULCE  DOMUM. 

humor  like  glimpses  of  sunshine  in  a  shady  place,  but  ever 
in  those  kind  and  gentle  eyes  an  unspeakable  sadness,  as  if, 
no  matter  what  the  lips  were  saying,  they  were  always  seeing 
the  mission  of  their  master's  life,  at  once  an  anthem  and  a 
dirge,  that  should  touch  unreckoned  ages,  and  make  his 
words  imperishable  as  our  English  speech. 

Ah,  "it  is  a  dread  and  awful   thing  to"  live  so  grand   a 
life  as  it  is  to  die  a  tragic  death. 


LINCOLN    AND    HIS    PSALM. 


M 


DECORATION   DAY. 

OVE  on,  ye  pilgrims  to  the  Springfield  tomb  — 

Be  proud  to-day,  O  portico  of  gloom, 
Where  lies  the  man  in  solitary  state 

Who  never  caused  a  tear  but  when  he  died 

And  set  the  flags  around  the  world  half-mast. 
The  gentle  Tribune  and  so  grandly  great 
That  e'en  the  utter  avarice  of  Death 

That  claims  the  world,  and  will  not  be  denied, 
Could  only  rob  him  of  his  mortal  breath. 

How  strange  the  splendor  though  the  man  be  past ! 
His  noblest  inspiration  was  his  last. 
The  statues  of  the  Capitol  are  there 
As  when  he  stood  upon  the  marble  stair 
And  said  those  words  so  tender,  true  and  just, 
A  royal  psalm  that  took  mankind  on  trust  — 
Those  words  that  will  endure  and  he  in  them 
While  May  wears  flowers  upon  her  broidered  hem 
And  all  that  marble  snows  and  drifts  to  dust : 

47 


48  DULCE  DO  MUM. 

"  FONDLY  do  we  hope,  fervently  we  pray, 

"  That  this  mighty  scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away  ; 

"  With  charity  for  all,  with  malice  toward  none. 

"  With  firmness  in  the  right 

"As  God  shall  give  us  light, 
"Let  us  finish  the  work  already  begun  — 
"  Care  for  the  battle  sons,  the  Nation's  wounds  to  bind, 
"  Care  for  the  helpless  ones  that  they  will  leave  behind, 
"  Cherish  it  we  will,  achieve  it  if  we  can, 
"A  just  and  lasting  peace  forever  unto  Man!" 

Amid  old   Europe's  rude  and  thundering  years 

When  peoples  strove  as  battle-clouds  are  driven, 
One  calm  white  angel  of  a  day  appears 

In  every  year,  a  gift  direct  from  Heaven, 
Wherein  from  setting  sun   to  setting  sun 
No  thought  or  deed  of  bitterness  was  done. 

"  Day  of  the  truce  of  God  !  "     Be  this  day  ours 

Until  perpetual  peace  flows  like  a  river, 
And  hopes  as  fragrant  as  the  tribute  flowers 
Fill  all  the  land  forever  and  forever. 


THE    TWO    ARMIES. 


ONE  bright  September  day  I  rode 
Through  prairie  sweeps  horizon-broad, 
And  saw  a  host  a  million   strong 
Drawn  up  in  columns  dense  and   long, 
All  silken-tasseled  and  beplumed. 
No  bugle  blew,  no  cannon  boomed, 
No  orders  rang  along  the  lines 
But  whispers  as  in  woods  of  pines. 
They  stood  erect  in  bright  array 
And  filled  the  splendid  eye  of  day. 

Nine  English  miles  from  front  to  flank, 
Nine  English  miles  from  wing  to  wing, 

And  as  I   flew  from   rank  to  rank 

They  came  about  with  stately  swing. 

What  hosts  are  these  that  wave  the  sword  ? 

And  quick  returned  the  answering  word, 

"  One  Standing  Army  of  the  Lord  ! 

49 


DULCE   DO  MUM. 


The  emerald   regiments  of  corn 
At  reveille  salute  the  morn  ! 


Now  .open  out,  ye  legions  green! 

Let  strange  battalions  march  between 

Up  to  the  front  as  they  were  wont, 

Ay,  let  the  azure  squadrons  through, 

A  grander  armament  than  you, 

Two  hundred  thousand   Boys  in   Blue  ! 

The  nation's  graves  have  ebbed  away 

And  blent  in  dust  the  blue  and  gray. 

All  peaceful  as  a  field  of  maize, 

No  billowed  flags  nor  battle's  blaze  ; 

Thank  God  for  calm  from   pine  to  palm, 

Strike  up  the  benediction   psalm  : 

Now  unto  God  be  all  the  praise, 

To  Blue  and  Gray  good  morn  !    good   night ! 

With  one  accord  strike  hands  for  right, 

And  one  the  glory  and  the  sheen, 

We'll  fight  new  battles  in  the  green  ! 


ROSE,    LILY, 
AND    MAY    FLOWER. 


i. 

IN   Sharon's  Vale  some  roses  grew 
Three  thousand  years  ago, 
And  bloomed  their  little  season  through, 
And  shed  their  leaves  when  winter  blew 
Like  flakes  of  fragrant  snow. 

II. 

A  royal  hand  did  gather  them 
And  set  them  in  his  Song, 
You  cannot  find  his  diadem 
But  broidered  on  his  Hebrew  hem 
The  roses  glow  along. 

III. 

The  stately  Ages  tread  aside 
Where'er  those  roses  are, 


DULCE   DOMUM. 


Though  realms  have  vanished, 

diamonds  died, 

Old  Sharon's  children  yet  abide 
As  deathless  as  a  star. 


" g  CHRIST'S    LILIES, 

I. 

IN  Galilee  some  lilies  hung 
Their  chalices  of  white, 
And  to  and  fro  their  fragrance  flung. 
So  many  cups  of  incense  swung 
Before  the  Lord  of  light. 

IT. 
The  Turk  and  Christian  trod  to  death 

The  glory  of  the  shrine, 
And  left  no  lily's  grave  beneath 
Nor  speechless  eloquence  of  breath 
To  sweeten   Palestine. 

III. 

These  idle  princes  of  their  race 
Have  never  died  at  all ; 


ROSE,    LILY  AND   MAY  FLOWER. 


53 


Behold  them  in  Judean  grace 
As  rallied  round  a  holier  place 

Within  his  instant  call, 

IV. 
They  smile  and  wait  at  God's  right  hand 

And  grow  of  strange  account, 
For  angels  watch  them  as  they  stand 
Amid  that  lily-garden  land, 

The  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 


THE    MAY    FLOWER. 

I. 
A  Pilgrim   Flower  —  a  troubled  sea, 

A  winter  wild  and  white, 
Its  only  world  was  on  the  lea, 
A  tempest  caught  and  swept  it  free 
To  wilderness  and  night. 


DULCE  DOMUM. 

II. 

Oh,  Christians,  for  the  May  Flower  pray, 

Each  petal  is  a  soul  ! 
Adrift  and  doomed  this  Flower  of  May, 
Oh,  women,  weep  your  hearts  away, 
Oh,  gray-haired   Sexton,  toll ! 

III. 
December  waited  gaunt  and  grim 

Within  its  lair  of  snow, 
The  shaggy  forests  ghostly  dim 
Stood  up  and  sang  a  funeral  hymn 
Two  hundred  years  ago. 

IV. 
,That  stranded  flower  was  strangely  blent 

Of  amaranth  and  May  ; 
From  marble  tower  to  miner's  tent, 
Where'er  the  Anglo-Saxon  went 
It  brightens  night  and  day. 

V. 
Oh,  roses,  lilies,  flowers  of  May  ! 

Akin  to  human  kind, 
The  Ages  bear  ye  on  their  way  — 
Bound  in  one  sweet  and  rare  bouquet 
An  endless  Spring  is  twined. 


MASSACHUSETTS  SENDS  GREETING. 


I   MET  a  man  away  down   East 
Who  towered  amid  the  eight-rowed  corn 
Raccoons  could  finish  at  a  feast, 

And  listened  for  the  dinner-horn. 
A  crow  aloft  on  a  hemlock  limb 
Looked  black  at  what  would  fall  to  him. 
The  bilious  earth  lay  blank  beneath, 
His  angry  hoe  showed  signs  of  teeth, 
So  nicked  and  notched  with  glance  and  glint 
At  bowlder  gray  and  sparkling  flint. 
He  saw  a  pumpkin's  yellow  blow 
And  touched   it  with  his  thoughtful  toe, 
Prophetic  flower  of  by-and-by, 
Forerunner  of  one  pumpkin   pie  ! 

"Out  West?     Jes'  so  !     From  Illinoi  ? 
"  My  Jern  is  there  —  my  oldest  boy  — 
"  And  John's  in   Kansas,  so  is  Jane, 
"  She  married  one  Elnathan  Payne;  — 

55 


56  DULCE   DO  MUM. 

"And  mother  too  —  she  wants  to  go. 

"  No  musket  ever  scattered  so  ; 

"And  then  it  allus  p'ints  oneway  — 

"  Right  where  them  big  per-aries  lay. 

"Betwixt  them  two  —  Death  and  the  West  — 

"  They  git  our  youngest,  strongest,  best. 

"  It's  queer  the  grave-yard  keeps  a-growin' 

"As  ef  nobody  dreamed  of  goin'  ! 

"  It's  there  right  where  them  brooms  o'  trees 

"  Are  sweepin'  nothin   in  the  breeze. 

"A  queen-bee  in  an  empty  hive 

"  Is  all  o'  mine  that's  left  alive. 

"  I  call  them   dead  I   never  see, 

"  The  West  or  Heaven's  all  one  to  me  — 

"I  wait  an'  wait  —  God  give  me  grace! 

"  They  don't  come  back  from  either  place. 

"  Them   miles  an'  miles  of  level  land, 
<c  And  ev'ry  tree  brought  up  by  hand, 
"  The  sky  shut  down  around  the  green 
"  As  snug  as  any  soup-tureen. 
"  Poor  show  for  David  with  his  sling 
"An'  not  a  pebble  fit  to  fling." 


MASSACHUSETTS   SENDS   GREETING.  57 

So  talked  the  Massachusetts  man 
And  paused  for  breath  and  then  began  : 
"  I  hear  you  have,"  the  farmer  said, 
"A  creature  with  a  horse's  head, 

"A  cricket's  body,  dragon's  wings, 
"  The  long  hind  legs  of  a  kangaroo, 

"The  hungriest  of  created  things 
"  That  eats  a  landskip  through  an'  through  ; 

"  A  boarding-house  for  bugs  may  be 
"The  place  for  you  but  not  for  me." 

Alas,  old  man,  I  sadly  said, 

They  are,  indeed,  most  nobly  fed  ; 

You  taunt  us  with  no  dainty  touch, 

But  had  those  creatures  boarded  here 
It  would  have  saved  us  many  a  fear, 

They  could  not  harm  you  very  much, 
And  then  it  cannot  be  denied, 
They  surely  would  have  starved  and  died. 

"  I  wouldn't  swap  the  old  Bay  State," 
The  farmer  cried  with  voice  elate, — 
He  stood  upright  in  every  joint 
As  any  exclamation-point, 


5  8  DULCE  DO  MUM. 

And  hoe  and  stone  struck  instant  fire 

As  if  he  thus  touched  off  his  ire, — 

"  I  wouldn't  swap  the  old   Bay  State, 

"  It's  rugged   rocks  and  mountains  great, 

"  For  land  as  level  as  a  hone, 

"  All  ready  fenced  and  seeded  down. 

"  Our  grain  stands  slender  in  the  shock, 

"The  grists  are  light  we  send  to  mill, 
"  But  then  we  gave  you  Plymouth  Rock 

"  Where  Freedom's  clearins'  first  begin  ; 

"  The  world  takes  stock  in  Bunker  Hill, 
"Where  Freedom  put  the  sickle  in. 
"You've  Injuns  West  but  we're  ahead, 
"Our  Boston   Mohawks  allus  led, 
"  That  took  a  cargo  of  Bohea 
"  An'  steeped  a  drawin'  in  the  sea 
"An'  asked  young  Liberty  to  tea! 
"  They  snuff  at  Boston,  and  they  dub 
"The  good  old  town  the  Yankee  'Hub.9 
"What  all  it  means  I  never  knew, 
"  My  way  at  least,  it  may  be  true  : 
"  I  know  its  gritty  boys  go  out 

"  Like  spokes  of  wheels  to  reach  the  rim 
"  That  binds  creation  all  about 


MA  SSA  Cll  USE  TTX   SEND  S   <  1REE  TING. 


59 


"THE  WORLD  TAKES  STOCK  IN  BUNKER  HILL 
u  WHERE  FREEDOM  PUT  THE  SICKLE  IN." 


60  DULCE  DO  MUM. 

"Till  West  an'  East  an'  South  an'  North, 

"  You  hear  their  whistle  or  their  hymn 
" Around  the  felly  of  the  earth!" 

The  old  man  heard  the  dinner-horn 
And  stumped  away  among  the  corn. 
The  truth  had  lighted  up  his  face 
And  lent  the  furrowed  features  grace. 
He  turned  and  called  across  fhe  lot, 
"  There's  one  thing  more  I  'most  forgot ; 
"  Ef  you  see  Jem  or  John  or  Jane, 

ujes'  tell  'em  where  you've  been  to-day 
"  That  I  yit  walk  the  narrow  lane 
"Whose  end  is  growin'  mighty  plain, 

"  And  that  I  send  'em  far  away 
"  One  word  from  Massachusetts  sod, 
"The  blessin'  of  their  Fathers'  God, 

And  tell  'em  too,  an  Eastern  boy 
"  Must  make  a  man  in   Illinoi." 

Such  hearty,  homely  words  he  spoke, 
The  chimney  wore  a  plume  of  smoke, 
The  wife  stood  watching  at  the  door, 
Good-by,  old  man,  forevermore. 


-GOD    KNOWS." 


i. 

A«I  emigrant  ship  with  a  world  aboard 
Went  down  by  the  head  on  the  Kentish  coast, 
No  tatter  of  bunting  at  half-mast  lowered, 
No  cannon  to  toll  for  the  creatures  lost. 
Two  hundred  and  twenty  their  souls  let  slip, 
Two  hundred  and  twenty  with  speechless  lip 
Went  staggering  down  in  the  foundered  ship. 

II. 

Nobody  can  tell  it  —  nor  you  nor  I, 

The  frenzy  of  fright  when  lightning  thought 
Wove  like  a  shuttle  the  far  and  nigh, 

Shot  quivering  streams  through  the  long  forgot, 
And  lighted  the  years  with  a  ghastly  glare, 
A  second  a  year,  and  a  second  to  spare, 
'Mid  surges  of  water  and  gasps  of  prayer. 

III. 

The  heavens  were  doom  and  the  Lord  was  dumb, 
The  cloud  and  the  breaker  were  blent  in  one, 

61 


DULCE   DOMUM. 

No  angel  in  sight,  not  any  to  come  ! 

God  pardon  their  sins  for  the  Christ  His  Son  ! 
The  tempest  died  down  as  the  tempest  will, 
The  sea  in  a  rivulet  drowse  lay  still, 
The  roses  were  red  on  the  rugged  hill  — 
The  roses  that  blow  in  the  early  light 
And  die  into  gray  with  the  mists  of  night. 

IV. 
Then  drifted  ashore  in  a  night-gown  dressed 

A  waif  of  a  girl  with  her  sanded  hair, 
And  hands  like  a  prayer  on  her  cold  blue  breast, 

And  a  smile  on  her  mouth  that  was  not  despair. 
No  stitch  on  the  garment  ever  to  tell 
Who  bore  her,  who  lost  her,  who  loved  her  well, 
Unnamed  as  a  rose  —  was  it  Norah  or  Nell? 

V. 
The  coasters  and  wreckers  around   her  stood, 

And  gazed  on  the  treasure-trove  landward  cast, 
As  round  a  dead  robin  the  sturdy  wood, 

Its  plumage  all  rent  and  the  whirlwind  past. 
They  laid  a  white  cross  on  her  home-made  vest, 
The  coffin  was  rude  as  a  red-breast's  nest, 
And  poor  was  the  shroud,  but  a  perfect  rest 
Fell  down  on  the  child  like  dew  on  the  West. 


"GOD  KNOWS."  63 

VI. 
A  ripple  of  sod  just  covered  her  over, 

Nobody  to  bid  her  "  good-night,  my  bird  !" 
Spring  waited  to  weave  a  quilt  of  red  clover, 

Nobody  alive  had  her  pet  name  heard. 


WHAT   NAME?        ASKED    THE    PREACHER, 
"  GOD    KNOWS1."    THEY   SAID 


"  What  name  ?"  asked  the  preacher,  "  God  knows  !"  they  said. 

Nor  waited  nor  wept  as  they  made  her  bed, 

But  sculptured  "God  knows"  on  the  slate  at  her  head. 

VII. 
The  lesson  be  ours  when  the  night  runs  wild, 

The  road  out  of  sight  and  the  stars  gone  home, 
Lost  hope  or  lost  heart,  lost  Pleiad  or  child, 

Remember  the  words  at  the  drowned  girl's  tomb. 
Bewildered  and  blind  the  soul  can  repose 


64 


DULCE   DO  MUM. 

Whether  cypress  or  laurel  blossoms  and  blows, 
Whatever  betides  for  the  good  "  God  knows  " — 
God  knows  all  the  while  —  our  blindness  His  sight, 
Our  darkness  His  day,  our  weakness  His  might. 


THISTLE    SERMON. 


PRAY  let  the  gaudy  tulip  go 
For  Scotland's  flower  with  crimson  crest, 
That  wears  a  bee  on  every  blow 

And  bristles  like  a  bandit  dressed  ; 
That  drifts  its  silver  life-balloon 
Along  the  year's  dull  afternoon 
Bound  for  another  Spring,  and  girds 
The  feeble  heart  like  holy  words. 

Just  as  the  seeds  are  fit  to  fly 

A  yellow-bird  drops  deftly  down, 

A  living  nugget  from  the  sky, 

And  lights  upon  the  thistle  brown. 

And  then,  as  if  the  golden-head 

Were  shaking  up  its  feather  bed, 

A  little  breathless  tempest  breaks 

About  the  bird  in  silver  flakes, 

A  cunning  cloud  of  flock  and  fleck  — 

Alas,  the  thistle  is  a  wreck  ! 

65 


DULCE   DO  MUM. 

But  no,  the  seeds  are  taking  wing, 
The  goldfinch  has  no  time  to  sing 
For  taking  toll,  and  then  the  gale 
Sweeps  out  the  fleet  of  silk  and  sail, 


AND    THEN,    AS    IF   THE    GOLDEN-HEAD 
WERE   SHAKING    UP    ITS    FEATHER    BED. 

And  so,  the  weeds  are  always  here, 

And  finches  dine  another  year, 

And  so,  O  troubled  Soul,  good  cheer ! 


A   BIRTH-DAY. 


DECEMBER  IJTH.  1807. 
I. 

NEW  ENGLAND  bred,  December  born, 
Oh,  eldest  son  of  Doric  song, 
We  bid  thy  fame  and  thee  good  morn  ! 

The  welcomes  of  the  world   belong 
To  thee.     Thanksgiving  Day  drifts  down 
To  set  thy  birth-right  in  its  crown. 

II. 
Thanks  for  thy  bugle-horn  that  played 

Oppression's  Dead  March  round  the  land, 
Thanks  for  thy  ringing  harp  that  made 

New  pulses  leap  in  Labor's  hand, 
Thanks  for  thy  trumpet's  Gabriel  blast 
That  rallied  out  the  right  at  last. 

III. 
Thanks  for  thy  psaltery's  iron  strings 

That  shook  their  rhythmic  thunders  out 

67 


68  DULCE  DO  MUM. 

As  eagles  spurn  with  clashing  wings 

The  mountain  eyrie's  rgck  redoubt, 
Until  God's  broad  horizons  ran 
The  circling  brotherhood  of  man  ! 


IV. 

Thanks  for  thy  golden  bees  that  hum 

The  fragrant  tunes  of  summer  through 

The  year ;  forever  go  and  come 

With  all  things  sweet  and  pure  and  true, 

And  lend  these  dull  and  daily  lives 

The  music  of  the  murmuring  hives. 

V. 

Midway  between  Thanksgiving  Day 
And  Christmas  Eve  a  cradle  rocked, 

An  angel  left  his  radiant  way 

And  stood  beside  the  door  and  knocked. 


A    BIRTH-DAY. 

Before  him  waved  the  Christmas  glow, 
Behind  him  whirled  the  drifting  snow. 

VI. 

The  door  swung  wide.     Beyond  his  feet 
The  yule-log  streamed  a  golden  light, 

As  if  a  small  celestial  street 

Were  ribbon'd  on  the  breast  of  night. 

Let  grace  and  mercy  here  abide 

From   Halloween  to  Christmas-tide  ! 


VII. 

"  Now  peace  on  earth,"  the  angel  said, 
"  Praise  God  the  Father  and   the  Son,' 

And  so  above  that  infant  head 

The  carol  and  the  psalm  begun, 

Translated  since  in  every  tongue, 

By  battle  thundered,  Mercy  sung. 


7o  DULCE   DO  MUM. 

VIII. 

The  Christmas  coal  that  touched  his  lips, 

The  Christmas  soul  that  warmed  his  breast, 

Unquenched   to-day  in  earth's  eclipse 
Is  yet  aglow,  is  still  a  guest, — 

In  roll  of  timbrel,  song  of  wren, 

Tis  "  peace  on  earth,  good  will  to  men  ' " 


IX 

He  sang,     The  debtor's  dungeon  door 
Swung  backward  on  its  hinge  of  rust, 

The  chains  clanked  down  that  bondmen  wore 
And  blood  cried  out  from  speechless  dust, 

Till  skies  of  daisies  starred  the  sod 

Where  terror  knelt  and  tyrant  trod. 


A    BIRTH-DAY. 

X. 

He  sang.     And  poor  Bron  rhuddyn's  throat 
Was  trembling  sweet  with  English  song. 

He  sang.     And  bolted  lightnings  smote 
The  grizzly  battlements  of  Wrong. 

Strike  not  thy  "  Tent "  beside  the  sea, 

Brave  Laureate  of  Liberty  ! 


XI. 

Not  "  Snow-bound  "  yet,  this  later  John 
Sings  Eden's  dear  old  songs  again, 

And  WHITTIER'S  Pilgrims  travel  on 

Till  Time's  last  anthem  sounds  AMEN. 


ROCK    EYRIE. 


WHERE  mountains  lift  forever  at  high  tide, 
Where  air  is  crystal  and  the  near  stars  ride, 
Empyreal  Admirals  of  the  Blue, 
And  silver  snow-drifts  mock  the  silver  true, 
'Mid   Nature's  high  relief,  Rock  Eyrie,  hail ! 

Oh,  friend  afar,  could  prayer  of  mine  avail 

Thy  cloudless  soul  should  match  thy  cloudless  skies, 

Crowned  with  all  joy  thy  DULCE  DOMUM  rise, 

Be  every  day  good-morning  and  good-night, 

Till  dawn  celestial  brings  the  perfect  light. 

Sec  Frontispiece. 


THE    FLYING    HERALDS. 


I  CAN  see  him  now  —  the  post-rider  of  my  boyhood,  in 
his  muskrat  cap,  and  his  overcoat  with  half  as  many 
capes  as  North  America ;  his  thin  section  of  a  horse  that 
trotted  on  one  leg  and  cantered  with  the  other  three.  I 
can  hear  his  tin  horn,  like  the  buzz  of  an  unamiable  bee,  as 
he  summoned  the  people  out  to  gate  or  bars  for  the  damp 
dry  Weekly  poor  Desdemona  could  cover  with  her  handker 
chief. 


Afterward,  I  rode  on  the  Fast  White  Mail  that  whirled  a 
hundred  tons  of  print  and  pen  a  thousand  miles  a  day,  and 
halted  the  sun  that  it  should  not  go  down  until  the  morn 
ing  paper  of  New  York  had  been  read  in  "  the  land  of  the 
Beautiful  River."  All  the  whips  and  spurs  of  Derby  Day 

73 


74  DULCE  DOMUM. 

were  as  the  lazy  click  of  a  grandam's  needles  slow  knitting 
by  the  kitchen  fire,  to  that  wild  rattling  ride,  and  when  the 
miles  grew  short  and  shorter  still,  it  was  like  a  flight  of 
ringing  cheers.  Swiftest  motion  is  intensest  life 


THE    FLYING    HERALDS. 


SLING  up  the  bugle  !  Harp  and  lute, 
Let  every  dusty  string  be  mute. 
Be  still  the  drum  and  dumb  the  flute, 
While  trumpets  blow  so  brave  and   loud 

They  rally  like  a  flag  unfurled 

And  wake  and  warm  the  startled  world 
The  trumpets  of  the  "  Flying  Cloud." 
That  silver  breath  of  steam  adrift 

As  lazy  as  a  morning  mist, 
Can  whirl  an  engine  winged  and  swift 
As  whirls  a  fan's  small  ounce  of  lift 

At  the  turn  of  my  lady's  wrist  - 
Can  stitch  this  planet's  raveled  robe, 
Gird  like  a  slender  girl  the  globe 
Till  far-off  cities  meet  and  mate 
As  neighbors  gossip  at  the  gate. 
Lo,  there  the  Eagle  Chariots  come  ! 
The  gorges  growl,  the  bridges  drum, 
The  tunneled  thunder  rumbles  grum. 


DULCE  DOMUM. 

A  blast  of  trumpet  long  and  loud, 

Black  clouds  for  pall  and  white  for  shroud, 

And  starry  sparkles  raining  fast, 

As  if,  God's  autumn  come  at  last, 

I  saw  adrift  and  tempest-rent 

A  tatter  of  the  firmament. 

"FIFTY    MINUTES    LATE." 

Pull  out,  my  gallant  engineer ! 

Take  aim  along  the  smooth  air  line, 
The  way  is  clear,  the  far  is  near, 

Five  hundred  miles  and  then  we  dine. 
Upon  Chicago  draw  a  bead  — 
See  where  she  lifts  her  antlered  head, 

Her  masted  fleets  like  woods  of  pine. 

With  clash  and  clank  and  roar  and  ring 
And  clang  of  bell  and  trumpet  blare 
And  comet  head-light's  growing  glare 

Old  Vulcan's  self  has  taken  wing  ! 
With  rattling  rock  and  swinging  swerves 
He  fearless  sweeps  the  splendid  curves, 
Lies  over  to  the  nervous  work 
As  wheel  the  chargers  of  the  Turk. 
The  engineer  whips  out  his  watch  — 

The  train  is  fiftv  minutes  late ! 


THE   FLYING  HERALDS. 

"Old  Time's  a  nimble  thing  to  catch," 
He  says,  "  but  then  I'm  sure  as  fate, 
"Shove  in  the  diamonds  there,  my  mate!" 
The  mile-posts  glitter  like  a  grate. 

The  red-mouth'd  furnace  yawns  for  more 

And  gives  a  husky,  hungry  roar, 

It  shakes  a  thunder-cloud  of  mane 

Above  the  quiver  of  the  train, 

Down  comes  the  lever  quick  and  strong, 

The  Eagle  Chariots  plunge  along. 

'Tis  whip  and  spur  and  rail  and  steel, 
'Tis  flash  and  rush  and   rock  and  reel 
As  if  one  streak  of  early  dawn 
Should  travel  night-time  and  be  gone. 
See  all   the  while  the  driver  stand, 
His  heart-beat  in  his  bridle  hand, 
His  hair  by  gusty  night  blown   back  — 
It  blows  whene'er  he  has  the  track  ; 
His  eye  is  on  the  iron  bars 

That  swing  around  to  let  him   through, 
He  hums  a  tune  and  thanks  his  stars 

"  The  Lansing's  "  stanch  and  tried  and  true. 
His  brow  is  wet  with  mental  sweat, 
He  says,  "I'm  sure  to  make  it  yet  — 


77 


DULCE  DO  MUM. 

"  My  grand  old  lady  does  her  best." 

His  soul  is  in  the  distant  West, 

His  watch  is  burning  in  his  vest. 

Its  bloodless  hands  that  mock  the  dead 

Wipe  off  the  minutes  from  its  face 
As  if  the  tears  that  Time  had  shed 

For  some  lost  hope  or  perished  grace. 

What  if  a  paltry  breath  of  space 
Would  save  that  "  foot-board  "  hero  there 

His  well-earned  knighthood  of  the  road, 
Those  hands  would  never  heed  the  prayer 

But  mark  the  fatal  hour  he  owed. 

The  frantic  bell  is  on  the  ring, 
The  furnace  door  is  on  the  swing, 
The  Fast  White  Mail  is  on  the  wing. 
It  whistles  up  the  stealthy  roads 

That  creep  across  the  iron  way, 
It  brightens  up  the  still  abodes 

Of  them  that  weep  or  sleep  or  pray. 
The  mighty  eye  glares  down  the  rails, 
The  cruel  wheels  come  down  like  flails, 
The  bull-dog  bridges  growl  and  growl 

Forever  at  the  Herald's  heel, 
The  mile-posts  all  are  cheek  by  jowl 


THE   FLYING  HERALDS. 


79 


THE    BULL-DOG    BRIDGES    GROWL    AND    GROWL 
FOREVER   AT   THE    HERALD'S    HEEL. 


DULCE  DOMUM. 

And  sixty  in  an  hour! 

It  means  far  more  than  steam  and  steel, 
This  wondrous  burst  of  pinion  power, 
Means  tempered  grit  and   iron  will, 
Means  nerve  and  faith  and  brain  and  skill. 

"TWENTY    MINUTES    LATE." 

The  twain  at  last  have  struck  their  gait  — 

The  engine  and  the  engineer. 
"  The  train  is  twenty  minutes  late  !  " 

The  smutty  fireman  gives  a  cheer. 
He  lets  her  out  in  giant  strides, 

She  thrusts  her  slender  arms  of  steel 
Deep  in  the  caskets  at  her  sides, 

The  nervous  creature  seems  to  feel 
For  something  precious  hidden  there  ; 
Plucks  out  great  handfuls  of  the  power 
That  gives  her  sixty  miles  an  hour, 
And  flings  and  tosses  everywhere 

Huge  volumes  of  the  power  asleep, 
As  if  a  thousand  fleecy  sheep 
Turned  out  to  pasture  in  the  air. 

"  She  buckles  bully  to  the  work, 
"  She's  riot  the  kind  of  girl  to  shirk," 
The  driver  says,  and  tries  the  gauge 
And   never  dreams  he  leads  the  age. 


THE   FLYING  HERALDS.  81 

Full  seventy  feet  at  a  single  plunge, 
And  seventy  feet  at  a  single  breath, 
And  seventy  feet  from  instant  death  ! 

A  little  slower  than  the  lunge 

The  lightning  makes  that  stabs  the  night, 
And  faster  than  a  falcon's  flight. 

Tis  seventy  feet  at  every  beat 

Of  heart  and  clock  the  train  is  hurled, 

At  such  a  rate  with  such  a  mate 

Not  eighteen  days  around  the  world. 


"ON   TIME!" 

The  hamlets  scatter  from  the  path, 
As  tempests  blow  the  aftermath, 
And  wild  as  deer  the  woods  retreat 
That  met  and  whispered  in  the  street. 
"  Down  brakes  !    A  haystack  blocks  the  route  ! 
And  there  !     It  slowly  waltzes  out. 


82  DULCE  DOMUM. 

A  mighty  shadow  inks  the  track 

As  if  a  mountain  should  lie  down 

And  leave  the  print  from  foot  to  crown  — 
Before  you  think  it  there  and  back 

We  cut  the  shadow  through  and  through, 
The  telegraphic  poles  grow  dense 

As  forests  of  the  tall  bamboo, 
That  swift  striped  streak  is  just  a  fence 

As  if  ten  miles  of  ribbon  flew. 
Tis  neck  and  neck.     The  driver  smiles, 
He's  running  down  the  missing  miles, 
The  train  swims  on  with  easy  sway 

As  supple  as  a  serpent's  glide, 
Chicago  and  the  break  of  day 

And  miles  and  minutes  side  by  side  ! 
White  lights  and  red,  green  lights  and  blue, 
The  thorough-breds  have  pulled  us  through  — 
Through  snow  and  blow  and  ray  and  rack, 

A  thousand  miles  !     One  night  and  day  ! 
From  black  to  white,  from  white  to  black. 

"  My  move,"  I  hear  the  driver  say, 
"  Checkmate  to  Time  !    We've  won  the  game, 
"The  race  for  life,  the  flight  for  fame  — 
"Chicago!  and  we  kept  the  track." 


AUGUST    LILIES. 


i. 

DIED  last  night  at  twelve  o'clock 
The  richest  month  of  all  the  year, 
Her  belted  grain  in  sheaf  and  shock 
Like  gold  encampments  far  and  near. 
The  rose-tree  mourns  in  spider's  crape, 
At  half-mast  stands  the  hollyhock, 

The  rock  that  five-leaved   ivies  drape 
Has  dared  to  rob  some  prince  of  Tyre 
And  wear  his  robe  of  purple  fire. 

II, 

The  lively  locust's  rattling  watch 
Is  always  busy  running  down, 

The  cricket  sings  its  breathless  catch 
And  sunflowers  lift  the  yellow  crown. 
As  if  a  fairies'  grave-yard  lent 

Its  slender  bones  to  dance  a  match, 

Cicadae's  knees  and  elbows  bent, 
83 


84  DULCE  DO  MUM. 

In  flurries  whirl,  a  crazy  set, 
To  click  of  Moorish  castanet. 


III. 

Unto  this  August,  Time  has  told 

Down  thirty  perfect  days  in  rhyme, 

Unsullied  hours  a  minute  old, 
A  minute  from  celestial  clime, 
With  two  full  moons  to  shine  the  while, 

Twelve  hours  were  silver,  twelve  were  gold  ; 
Five  Sabbath  mornings'  peaceful  smile 

To  light  the  radiant  weeks  along, 

With  flush  of  leaf  and  flights  of  song. 

IV. 

O  Queen  of  Months,  a  splendid  dower 

Was  thine,  and  yet  thou  could'st  not  wait 

For  all  this  wealth  one  little  hour 
But  met  inevitable  fate  ! 
Broad  leaves  have  hid  all  summer  long 
A  precious  thing  beside  my  gate. 
One  after  one  each  floral  throng 

Had  perished,  but  those  leaves  still  kept 

Their  secret  as  if  something  slept. 


AUGUST  LILIES. 


A    HAND    HAS    PUT    THOSE    LEAVES    ASIDE, 
LO,  AUGUST    LILIES    LIGHT    THE    DAY  ! 

SO    FAIR,  AS    IF    SOME    ANGEL    DIED 

AND   TOOK   THIS   MONUMENTAL   WAY. 


86  DULCE  DOMUM. 

V. 

A  hand  has  put  those  leaves  aside, 
Lo,  August  Lilies  light  the  day  ! 

So  fair,  as  if  some  angel  died 

And  took  this  monumental  way  ; 
So  pure,  as  if  some  Singer  sweet 

Had  touched  it  with  her  lips  and  sighed 
Because  these  chaliced  lives  so  fleet, 

These  dear  Day  Lilies,  only  last 

While  each  swift  day  is  going  past. 

And  yet  why  not  ?     Why  tarry  here 

Till  dark  and  drear  November  comes 
To  play  the  Dead  March  on  its  drums 

Of  sleet,  and  freeze  the  falling  tear. 


CENTENNIAL    BELLS. 


HAVING  written  a  poem   I   made  a  pilgrimage  to  Inde 
pendence  Hall  to  see  the  subject.     It  was  a  delight  to 
find  the  awkward  wound  has  never  healed  ;  that  the  gloomy 
dome  is  dingy;  older  than  the  Republic  but  with  a  refresh 


A    DUMB    BELL. 


ing  suspicion  of  greenness.  The  sacred  text  is  there  yet ; 
the  first  proclamation  of  liberty,  that  in  the  Old  Testament 
is  a  command,  but  transferred  to  the  Old  Bell  was  a 


88  DULCE  DO  MUM. 

prophecy.  The  iron  preacher  pounded  and  expounded  from 
that  verse  and  stuck  to  the  text  as  nobody  else  has,  since 
Paul  stood  on  Mars  Hill.  There  are  old  Mission  Bells 
a-many  that  are  dumb,  but  Independence  Hall  has  a  Bell 
with  a  Mission,  and  so  it  can  never  be  hushed. 

I  put  the  old  man  in  the  belfry  and  gave  him  white  hair 
and  made  him  as  glad  and  as  mad  as  he  could  live  ;  and  I 
set  the  boy  on  the  stairs  to  call  out  to  the  ringer  when  the 
signing  was  done,  and  presented  the  lad  with  a  pair  of  blue 
eyes  because  it  is  a  fast  color  and  I  liked  him;  and  yet  I 
knew  all  the  while  that  the  Magi  of  the  West,  who  are  the 
Paul  Prys  of  mankind  and  "disturbers  of  the  peace"  of  the 
quick  and  the  dead,  declare  the  old  man  had  no  more  idea 
for  what  he  was  ringing  than  the  bell-wether  of  a  flock  of 
sheep,  and  that  there  was  no  such  boy  on  the  stairs  nor  any 
boy  at  all.  If  the  incident  is  a  fiction  it  is  a  melancholy 
pity,  for  it  ought  to  be  a  fact. 


CENTENNIAL    BELLS. 


YE  belfry'd  blacksmiths  in  the  air, 
Smite  your  sweet  anvils  good  and  strong ! 
Ye  lions  in  your  lofty  lair 

Roar  out  from  tower  to  tower  along 
The  wrinkled  coasts  and  scalloped  seas 
Till  winter  meet  the  orange  breeze 


POUR    OUT,  YE    GOBLETS,  FAR    AND    NEAR, 
YOUR    GRAND    MELODIOUS    IRON    FLOOD. 


9o 


DULCE   DOMUM. 

From  bridal  lands  that  always  wear 
The  blessed  blossoms  round  their  hair. 
Centennial  Bells,  ring  on  ! 

Pour  out,  ye  goblets,  far  and  near, 

Your  grand  melodious  iron,  flood, 
Till  pine  and  palm  shall  think  they  hear 

The  axes  smite  the  stately  wood, 
Nor  dream  the  measured  cadence  meant 
The  clock-tick  of  the  Continent, 
The  foot-fall  of  a  world  that  nears 
The  field-day  of  a  hundred  years. 

Ye  blossoms  of  the  furnace  fires, 

Ye  iron  tulips  rock  and  swing. 
The  people's  primal  age  expires, 

One  hundred  years  the  reigning  king. 
Strike  "one,"  ye  hammers  overhead, 
Ye  rusty  tongues,  ring  off  the  red, 
Ring  up  the  Concord  Minute  Men, 
Ring  out  old   Putnam's  wolf  again. 

Ring  down  the  curtain  on  To-day 
And  give  the   Past  the  right  of  way, 
Till  fields  of  battle  red  with  rust 
Shine  through  the  ashes  and  the  dust 


CENTENNIAL   BELLS. 

Across  the  Age,  and  burn  as  plain 
As  glowing  Mars  through  window-pane- 
How  grandly  loom  like  grenadiers 
These  heroes  with  their  hundred  years  ! 


YE    BLOSSOMS    OF    THE    FURNACE    FIRES, 
YE    IKON    TULIPS    ROCK    AND    SWING. 


Ring  for  the  blue-eyed  errand-boy 

That  quavered  up  the  belfry  stair, 
"They've  signed  it!  Signed  it  !  "  and  the  joy 

Rolled  forth  as  rolls  the  Delaware. 
The  old  man  started  from  a  dream, 
His  white  hair  blew,  a  silver  stream, 
Above  his  head  the  bell  unswung 
Dumb  as  a  morning-glory  hung  ; 
The  time  had  come  awaited  long, 
His  wrinkled  hand  grew  young  and  strong, 


DULCE   DOMUM. 

He  grasped  the  rope  as  men  that  drown 
Clutch  at  the  life-line  drifting  down, 
The  iron  dome  as  wildly  flung 
As  if  Alaska's  winds  had  rung. 

Strange  that  the  founder  never  knew 
When  from  the  molten  glow  he  drew 
That  bell,  he  hid  within  its  rim 
An  anthem  and  a  birth-day  hymn. 

So  rashly  rung,  so  madly  tossed, 
Its  old  melodious  volume  lost, 
Its  thrilled  horizon  rent  and  cleft, 
Of  sweet  vibration  all  bereft, 
And  yet  to  hear  that  tocsin  break 
The  silence  of  a  hundred  years, 
Its  rude  discordant  murmurs  shake 
And  rally  out  the  soul  in  cheers 
Would  set  me  longing  to  be  rid 
Of  sweeter  voices  and  to  bid 
Centennial  Bells  be  dumb. 

Although  no  mighty  Muscovite, 
No  iron  welkin  rudely  hurled, 

That  bell  of  Liberty  and  Right 

Was  heard  around  the  Babel  world. 


CENTENNIAL   BELLS.  93 

Land  of  the  green  and  golden  robe, 

A  three  hours'  journey  for  the  Sun, 
Two  oceans  kiss  thee  round  the  globe, 

Up  the  steep  earth  thy  rivers  run 
From  geologic  ice  to  June, 
A  hundred  years  from  night  to  noon. 

In  blossom  still  like  Aaron's  rod, 
The  clocks  are  on  the  stroke  of  one  — 

One  land,  one  tongue,  one  flag,  one  GOD  ! 

Centennial  Bells,  ring  on  ! 


94 


DULCE   DO  MUM. 


TWO    RIVERS   AND    TWO    SHIPS, 


TI7'HE'N  certain  Peopie  say  of  a  man  "he  is  sentimental," 
»  »  they  mean  to  pluck  out  his  beard  and  make  a  finish 
of  his  manhood  ;  of  a  woman,  that  she  is  an  amiable  fool. 
The  stout  world  sometimes  fears  anything  tender  but  "  legal 
tender,"  steaks  and  muffins.  In  cultivating  hard  heads  on 
their  shoulders  men  come  to  carry  trilobites  in  their  left 
breasts.  As  a  rule,  all  childhood  shrinks  instinctively  from 
him  who  forgets  or  despises  his  own,  and  he  who  will  not 
confess  to  a  soft  place  in  his  heart  is  quite  sure  to  have  one 
in  his  head. 

Of  all  earthly  charms  there  is  none  so  ineffable  and  ex 
quisite  as  the  charm  of  youth.  It  invests  indifferent  things 
with  a  grace  that  is  almost  beauty.  That  it  must  perish 
like  a  vanishing  vision  at  dawning  day,  has  been  a  burden 
of  lament  with  the  manliest  of  men.  A  love  for  creeping 
back  under  the  world's  Eastern  eaves,  and  being  for  a  mo 
ment  "  the  father  of  the  man "  again,  is  almost  as  restful 
and  inspiring  as  a  view  from  Bunyan's  Delectable  Moun 
tains  whence  the  Celestial  City  is  in  sight. 


96 


DULCE   DOMUM. 


These  paragraphs  are  written  as  a  placard  of  warning,  a 
sort  of  "  Beware,"  to  those  who  would  have  nobody  know 
they  were  ever  ten-toed  boys,  lest  they  may  blunder  upon 
poetical  premises  with  so  much  that  breathes  the  spirit  of  a 
new  Beatitude  :  BLESSED  is  the  land  whose  sons  are  all  boys 
and  whose  daughters  are  all  girls. 


TWO    RIVERS   AND    TWO    SHIPS. 


I'VE  seen  such  rivers  rolling  down 
The  world  I  thought  them  traveling  seas, 

So  vast  they  made  the  land  look  lone, 

And  spreading  wide  their  seamless  robe 

Defied  the  barrier  and  the  breeze 
To  circumnavigate  the  globe. 

I've  seen  such  ships  with  piles  of  cloud 
Three  heavens  deep  among  the  pines 
Stayed  with  the  web  of  spidery  lines, 

So  queenly  fair,  so  kingly  proud, 

It  took  my  breath  to  see  them  sail 
So  near  the  sky's  blue  valance  veil 
They  might  have  heard  an  angel's  hail. 

And  yet  they  never  thrilled  and  warmed 

Until  my  very  soul  was  stormed, 

As  when  the  meadow  brook  was  passed 
With  shouts  of  joy  by  pilgrims  bold 
That  played  the  Israelites  of  old  — 

The  girls  with  cambric  frocks  half-mast, 


98 


DULCE   DO  MUM. 

The  boys'  blue  trousers  at  the  knee, 
And  twinkling  feet  walked  pebbly  street 

And  so  we  crossed  the  mimic  sea;  — 
As  when  I  launched  the  dug-out  boat 

All  freighted  with  the  mallow  cheese 
And  saw  the  jack-knife  fabric  float 

Triumphant  in  the  fresh'ning  breeze; 
The  little  fish  like  lancets  keen 
Cut  in  and  out  with  silver  sheen, 
The  green-legged  frog  and  greener  boy 

All  leap  to  see  the  craft  go  by, 
The  sweet-flag  waves  its  two-edged  blade, 
The  smoky  puff-balls  fusillade, 
A  bob-o'-link  rings  bells  of  joy, 

A  red-bird  flashes  fire-works  nigh, 

It  is  the  Fourth   of  my  July, 
Until,  the  cat-tail  jungle  reached, 

My  gallant  bark  careened  and  beached. 

And  then  we  boys  and  girls  sat  down 
And  from  a  chip  hat's  battered  crown 
Shook  out,  while  every  tongue  was  whist, 
Some  nut-cakes  with  the  good  old  twist, 
I  ask  like  Oliver  "  for  more  !  " 
Some  apples  red  and  water-core, 


TWO  RIVERS  AND    TWO   SHIPS. 


99 


AND    THEN    IX    BLISS    THE    BEVY    SAT, 

AND    ALL    IN    CONCERT    STRANGELY    MUTE 

WITH    ROASTING    EARS    WE    PLAYED   THE    FLUTE. 


ioo  DULCE  DOMUM. 

Some  ribb'd  and  amber  gingerbread, 
Some  roasted  corn  —  ah,  what  a  head 
It  must  have  been  to  fill  the  hat!  — 
And  then  in  bliss  the  bevy  sat, 
And  all  in  concert  strangely  mute 
With  roasting  ears  we  played  the  flute. 

One  boy  turned  judge  and  sentenced  men 

To  die  who  then  were  yet  unborn, 
And  one  who  heard  and  heeded  when 

"  Boots  and  saddles  "  blew  the  bugle-horn  ; 
A  sabre  kissed  him  and  the  scar 
Was  lighted  with  a  golden  star. 
One  girl  for  whom  the  angels  sent 
Did  hear  the  message,  smiled,  and  went 
So  long  ago  nobody  knows 
Just  where  she  takes  her  last  repose. 
Another  lives.     Her  silver  hair 

Is  shining  with  to-morrow's  dawn,     m 
Her  mournful  eyes  are  full  of  care. 

Which  best?  Who  knows?   Brave  heart,  live  on! 


OLD-FASHIONED    SPRING. 


GIVE  me  the  sweet  old-fashioned  Spring, 
Dear  as  a  girl's  engagement  ring  — 

I  hear  the  keys  in   crystal  locks 
Slow  turn  to  let  the  rivers  run 
And  shine  like  lizards  in  the  sun. 
I  watch  the  rigid  world  come  to, 
The  skies  come  off  with  broods  of  blue, 

The  soft  clouds  troop  in  fleecy  flocks, 

The  mosses  green  the  umber  rocks, 
The  twin  leaves  lift  their  tips  of  ears, 
The  rushes  poise  their  slender  spears, 

The  squirrels  tick  like  crazy  clocks, 
The  sunshine  leave  the  Southern  hall 
An*d  swing  around  to  the  Northern  wall. 

I  watch  the  blue  smokes  slowly  rise 
Amid  the  maples'  reddening  skies  — 
The  hemlock  couch,  the  rafter  rails, 
The  neck-yoked  Libras  with  their  pails, 


I6L>  DULCE   DOMUM. 

The  bended  twig,  a  ghostly  spoon, 

That  films  across  like  a  cloudy  moon  ; 

The  white  eggs  dance  in  the  tumbling  sap, 

The  nut-cakes  heap  a  checkered  lap, 

The  young  moon's  sickle  reaps  the  stars, 

Her  light  ribbed  off  with  maple  bars  ; 

The  laugh  of  girls,  the  camp-fire  glow, 

The  great  black  cauldron,  bubbling  slow, 

The  amber  mouth-piece  on  the  snow  — 

Oh,  memories  of  the  maple  fane, 

Wax  sweet  for  aye  though  moons  shall  wane  ! 

I  tread  brown  earth  with  loving  foot, 

Its  breath  steals  up  with  Agur's  prayer. 
I  see  the  lily's  green  surtout 

Unbutton   to  the  light  and  air. 
I  hear  the  hymn-book  songs  begin 

To  fly  abroad  from  windows  wide 
With  notes  of  lilac-breath  thrown  in, 

And  rhyme  and  thyme  in  mingled  tide 
I  hear  the  bees'  small  hum-book's  drone 

From  garden  bed  to  clover  glade 
And  frogs  strike  up  with  deep  trombone, 
And  lilting  bells  and  tambourine 

The  old  Homeric  serenade. 


OLD-FASHIONED    SPRING. 


10 


104 


DULCE  DOMUM. 


Give  me  the  dear  long-coming 

Spring, 
Horizons     like     a     blue-bird's 

wing  ; 
I  love  its  sights  and  sounds 

and  scents, 
The  plowshare's  fragrant 

corduroy, 
The  greenwood's  rustling 

halls  of  joy, 

Down     to     the    toad-stools' 
tiny  tents. 


I    HEAR   THE    BEES     SMALL    HUM-BOOK  S    DRONE. 

The  fire-fly  brings  his  lantern  light 
To  show  the  summer's  velvet  night. 
The  beds  of  pinks  are  bright  with  thrums 


OLD-FASHIONED    SPRING. 


I05 


THE  GREAT  BLACK  CAULDRON  BUBBLING  SLOW. 


106  DULCE   DOjtfUM. 

And  golden  glow  chrysanthemums, 
Verbenas  burn,  geraniums  blaze, 

The  smoke-tree  clouds  with  purple  mist, 
The  fuchsia  wears  an  amethyst  — 
A  ruby  at  the  hum-bird's  throat 
And  silver  in  the  finch's  note 
And  satin  on  the  martin's  coat, 
And   fire  upon  the  red-bird's  wing, 
God  speed  the  June  !    The  Sun  is  king. 


THE    ONE    STEP    MORE. 


i. 

NOVEMBER'S  rude  and  sleety  drummers 
Are  trampling  down   the  fallen   Summer's 
Rent  uniforms  of  buff  and   red, 
And  crape  clouds  all  the  world  o'erhead 
As  if  this  very  world  \vere  dead  ! 
The  gray  drum-majors  of  the  rain 
Are  beating  every  window-pane 
That  shows  a  ghostly- face  again. 

II. 

Then  up  the  road  that  shadows  blotted 
Till  all  the  dark  was  leopard-spotted, 

There  shone  a  dim  and   twinkling  light 
As  if  the  sad  disastered  night 
Had  shaken  down  with  blow  or  blight 
Amid  the  gloom  and   rain  and  wood 
Some  star  of  faintest  magnitude. 


I0g  DULCE   DO  MUM. 

III. 

Poor  fire-fly  strayed  from  domes  of  azure, 
Poor  taper  dropped  from  God's  embrasure, 
So  tossed  and  drifted  round  about 
To  flutter  wild  and  flicker  out 
And  leave  the  night  in  deeper  doubt. 


Poor  lost,  forlorn,  electric  spark 

To  quench   in  rain  and  drown   in  dark 


THE   ONE   STEP  MORE. 


109 


no  DULCE  DOMUM. 

IV. 

It  rounds  like  daisies  broadly  blowing 
In   California's  floral  snowing. 

The  glimmer  is  a  growing  gleam, 

The  gleam  a  glow,  the  glow  a  beam, 

As  dawns  afar  Cyclopic  steam. 

I  see  its  planetary  face, 

Its  small  horizon's  curve  of  grace. 

V. 

I  see  a  lantern  boldly  swinging, 
I  hear  its  bearer  bravely  singing. 
His  steps  as  sure  upon  the  sod 
As  if  the  cloudless  hosts  of  God 
Beheld  him  as  he  walked  abroad. 
No  idle  speculative  eyes 
Are  lifted  to  the  clouded  skies. 

VI. 

A  little  day  the  boy  is  bearing 
For  rain  and  darkness  little  caring, 
All  safe  within  his  home-made  noon 
What  is  Arcturus  or  the  moon 
To  him  that  sings  his  Bonny  Doon  ? 


THE   ONE   STEP  MORE.  IIT 

Within  the  candle's  curving  shore 
His  next  step  Ijes  —  he  needs  no  more. 

VII. 

A  lantern  with  a  soul  to  man   it 
Will  light  you  round  the  stormy  planet. 
On  that  one  step  all  steps  await  — 
March  on,  my  lad  !    The  hour  is  late  — 
Another  step  —  click  goes  the  gate, 
The  hearth-blaze  shines  along  the  floor, 
The  light  flares  out  from  open  door, 
The  goal  is  gained  with  the  one  step  more. 


112 


DULCE  DOMUM. 


THE    BEAUTY   OF    DEATH. 


OH  !    Nature  loves  her  children,  how  the  fond 
Blue  Heaven  is  hovering  all  beyond 
The  bended  brim  of  our  full-jewelled  day, 
Till  earth  to  azure  softly  melts  away. 
In  her  great  bosom  there  is  room  for  all, 
For  titled  lord  and  trembling  leaf  to  fall ; 
Her  clouds  are  anchored  and  her  rains  are  shed, 
O'er  lilies  faded,  as  o'er  princes  dead  ; 
The  mournful  murmur  in  the  River's  song  — 
The  Bird's  lament  —  to  both  alike  belong. 
Dear  Mother  of  us  all  !     How  very  small 
A  place  thou  need'st  for  human  pride  and  all 
Its  jewelry  —  our  treasures,  one  by  one, 
Sparkle  like  rain,  and  sparkling  —  they  are  gone. 
They  say  the  Indian  Summer  is  the  breath 
Of  myriad  leaves  descended  to  their  death. 
Ah  !    sweet  and  rare  the  dying  that  can  shed 
The  smile  of  June  o'er  gray  November's  dead  ! 
To  be  a  leaf  and  lie  upon  the  breast 


[14  DULCE   DO  MUM. 

Of  summer  air  — to  roof  a  cup  of  song, 

That  by  and  by  should  seek  the  morning  cloud, 
And  glide  from  dawn  to  dawn  in  melody  along, 

And  sing  at  Heaven's  portals  out  aloud  ; 
To  be  a  leaf,  and  put  a  glory  on 
For  dying  in  —  when  gentle  winds  are  gone, 
To  loose  the  tenure  on  the  forest's  crest, 
And  winnow  earthward  to  a  breathing  rest  — 
Would  be  thrice  blest,  if  this  be  all  of  life  — 
These  tardy  dawns,  these  struggles  and  this  strife, 
These  hopes  deferred,  these  clouds  out-biding  rain, 
The  beating  bosom  and  the  throbbing  brain, 
That  have  no  Sabbath,  in  Time's  weary  train. 
But  those  spent  billows  where  the  loved  were  laid, 
Where  smiles  were  few,  and  long  "good  nights"  were  said, 
Where  tears  were  shed,  and  prayers  were  made,  and  song 

Was  sung.     Oh  !    never  dream  the  dead  are  there. 
Nature  endures,  indeed,  but  not  for  long, 

The  peopled  grave.     The  summer  wind  shall  bear 
Its  wakened  beauty  to  the  air  of  God. 

Something  of  loveliness  within  a  shroud 
We  folded,  and  we  hid  it  'neath  the  sod. 

Nature  shall  find  it,  and  from  clod  to  cloud 
Shall  waft  it.     The  summer  wind  on  its  sweet  wing 


THE   BEAUTY  OF  DEATH.  II 

Shall  bear  it  round  the  world.     How  she  shall  mould 
That  dust  of  ours  !     The  emerald  Spring 

Shall  wear  it,  and  the  blue  brocade  of  gold 
Wherein  blest  Autumn  blushes  like  a  bride, 

Shall  have  for  warp  and  woof,  a  ravelled  thread 
From  that  old  robe  of  ours  we  laid  aside. 

Is  this  a  dying?     This  a  being  dead? 
The  latest  fabric  from  the  looms  sublime 

Hath   nothing  fairer  than  that  old  shall  be. 
One  treasure  from  thy  halls,  O  gentle  Time  ! 

Give  us  thy  graves  !  'Tis  all  we  ask  of  thee  ! 
Through  the  wide  arc,  from  seraph  down  to  sod, 
That  dust  shall  vibrate  'neath  the  breath  of  God. 

Tis  joy  to  know  these  weary  hearts  we  wear, 

Shall  beat  in   Nature's  greater  bosom  still ; 
'Tis  bliss  to  feel  there  is  no  "  vacant  chair  " 

In  earth's  dear  homestead.     "  I  feel,"  the  poet  said, 
"The  daisies  growing  o'er  me."     The  dying  child 

Of  song,  obedient  bent  his  gentle  head, 
And  died.     Oh  !    no,  not  died  —  those  flowers  that  smiled 

Around  his  grave,  were  springing  from  his  heart  ; 

Dear  thoughts  of  his  that  could  not  all  depart. 

Oh  !    never  seek  the  dead  in  billowed  graves  ; 

Like  sweet  stars  sprinkled  on  the  rolling  waves, 


DULCE  DOMUM. 

They  are  but  shadows  —  death  in  brief  disguise, 
Look  anywhere  but  there.     May  be  the  skies 
Retain  them,  or  the  air  and  light  of  God. 

The  drop  of  rain  that  glitters  on  the  leaf  — 
The  dewy  world,  that  satellite  of  sod, 

Were  once  perhaps  right  eloquent  of  grief ; 
Nature  distilled  them,  and  they  would  not  stain 

An  angel's  cheek.     If  angels  ever  weep 
For  joy,  well  might  it  be  in  such  sweet  rain, 

Where  married  days  lie  side  by  side  asleep  — 
Where  night's  divorce  forever  is  withdrawn, 
And  double  mornings  brink  unclouded  dawn. 

It  is  not  life  that  stains  the  window  pane  ; 

That  dimly  floats  upon  the  azure  air  ; 
For  God  did  link  the  labyrinthine  chain 

Round  something:  nobler  than  the  garb  we  wear. 
We  make  the  grave  the  Mecca  of  the  thought  — 
We  dream  that  beauty  there  has  come  to  naught  • 
As  if  the  rain  that  glitters  gaily  down 
The  bended  day  wherewith  God  binds  the  frown 
Of  tempests,  would  linger  'mid  the  seven, 
And  hang  suspended  in  an  empty  Heaven. 
The  birds  that  there  in  green  recesses  sing, 

Within  the  maple  swinging  overhead, 


THE   BEAUTY  OF  DEATH. 

May  bear  away  upon  each  glossy  wing, 

Some  trait  of  beauty  that  we  fancy  dead. 
The  rose-tree  blooms  above  the  sunken  grave  ; 
Her  lips  are  pale  below;    perhaps  they  gave 
The  mantling  blush  those  roses  wear  to-day  — 
Their  breath  the  fragrance  that  they  waft  away. 

We  build  the  tomb  —  we  dream  we  dyke  out  day 

And  fling  a  gloomy  fortress  round  decay  ; 

But  Nature  finds  the  idle  dust  we  hide  — 

She  cleaves  our  marble  and  she  mocks  our  pride. 

The  hungry  air  devours  the  bolts  and  bars  — 

The  mournful  rains  slow  weep  the  walls  away  — 
Time's  busy  fingers  part  a  glimpse  for  stars, 

And  darkness  yields  the  tenantry  to  day. 
The  grim  old  pyramids  —  the  mountain  caves, 

Where  one  by  one  the  ancient  dead  were  laid, 
Like  ocean  sands  behind  receding  waves 

Bear  not  a  trace  that  human  footfall  made. 
Dead?     What  is  dead?     Call  we  disrobing  death  — 

The  "little  sleep"  that  thought  and  heart  may  take 
The  "  little  sleep  "  a  whisper  or  a  breath, 

The  morning  light  or  falling  rain  may  break  ? 
Oh !   no.     The  great  High  Admiral  who  guides 
Life's  fleet,  and  sets  His  signal  on  the  tides, 


n8  DULCE   DOMUM. 

For  leaves  that  drift  —  who  pilots  in  the  day 
And  leads  the  ivy  on   its  winding  way, 
Will  bring  true  Thought,  however  toss'd  and   driven, 
Clasped  round  with  glory,  to  the  port  of  Heaven 
If  there  are  those  who  do  not  dare  to  die, 

And  who  would  dread  to  see  this  great  blue  tent 
Of  God  slow  closing  like  a  dying  eye, — 

No  hand  to  fold  —  no  foot-print  where  they  went 
Who  passed  away,  then  let  them  rock  a  thought, 
From  youth  to  manhood  on  the  naked  breast ; 
A  living  thought  that  shall  become  the  guest 
Of  Time,  and  to  all  heart,  and  right,  and  truth, 
Take  up  and  breathe  for  aye  the  prayer  of  Ruth. 
It  is  as  if  the  lark  ascending  nearer  God 

Should  leave  some  fragment  of  his  song  below  — 
As  if  dear  June  should  leave  upon  the  sod 

A  flower  or  two,  to  part  December's  snow. 
The  Summer  and  the  Bird  would  not  be  dead  ; 
One  only  passed,  and  one  just  overhead  ; 
The  Lark  would  sing  while  Earth  had  heart  to  hear, 
And  June  would  linger  through  the  deathless   year. 


THE    CALI 
FORNIA  YEAR. 


BEYOND    the    mid 
land  Rocky  Range 
That    wrinkles    up    the 

rugged  world, 
Where    gray    volcanoes 

sat  and  smoked 
Like  burgomastersweird 
and  strange, 

And  watched  the  columns  as  they  curled  ;  — 
Where  old  Decembers  crowned  and  cloaked 

Have  seen  a  thousand  Junes  go  by, 
119 


120 


DULCE   DO  MUM. 


A    CALIFORNIA     YEAR. 

A  thousand  winters  leave  the  line 
Cast  down  upon  the  rocks  to  die, 
Until  the  granite  crags  grew  white 
With  icy  bones  and  Arctic  fight 
And  grave-clothes  decked  with  pine;  — 
Where  grim  Sierra  shows  her  teeth, 


121 


Medusa  East,  Minerva  West, 
A  nursing  Boreas  at  her  breast, 
The  chained  and  halted  years  beneath, 
She  fronts  two  worlds  with  pale  intent 
And  smiles  across  the  Continent. 


122  DULCE   DO  MUM. 

Beyond  her  California  lies 

At  graceful  length  with  Zone  undone, 
Behold  this  Cleopatra's  eyes 
Grow  azure  under  Western  skies  ;  — 

Her  smitten  cheeks  turned  one  by  one 
Like  rare-ripe  peaches  to  the  sun  ; 
A  June  of  Junes  in  either  hand, 
Her  early  roses  light  the  late 

To  bed,  and  not  a  flower  to  grieve 
From  Easter  Morn  to  Christmas  Eve  — 
A  tropic  heart,  a  bosom  fanned 

By  breezes  from  the  Golden  Gate. 

Then  throned  upon  the  unbound  wheat 
She  slips  her  sandals,  and  her  feet 
Walk  white  among  the  lilies,  while 
We  tramp  the  snow-drift's  silent  mile. 
Her  months  like  Graces  stand  in  groups, 
To  cull  a  flower  November  stoops, 
December's  lips  with  berries  stained 

Are  pressed  upon  the  cheek  of  June, 
October's  hand  is  violet-veined 

And  morning-glories  last  till  noon. 

The  Year's  four  seasons  tossed  and  strown 
Like  Sybil's  leaves  along  the  track 


A    CALIFORNIA     YEAR. 


124 


DULCE  DOMUM. 


Of  Time  —  the  dear  old  reckoning  gone 
For    May    meets    August 

coming  back, 

And   tender  blades   and    yel 
low  sheaves 
In     one     rich     landscape 

strangely  met, 
A      wild       Arabian -night 
vignette, 


And  winter  woods  wear  flowing  sleeves, 
And  bud  and  bloom  and  harvest  all 
Commingle  in  a  carnival. 


A   VISION    OF    HANDS. 


A' 


Y,  give  all  honor  to  the  man 

Whose  sturdy  work  sweats  off  the  tan, 
Who  furrows  out  the  royal  road 

Where  broad-tread  harvests  march  abreast 


In  rustling  robe  and  golden  vest, 
And  gains  his  bread  first-hand  from   God  ; 


125 


I26  DULCE  DOMUM. 

Lives  hand  and  glove  with  out-door  life, 

Lives  hand  in  hand  with  faithful  wife, 

Strikes  hands  with  earnest  men  who  strive 

To  keep  both  soil  and  soul  alive  ; 

Who  does  his  duty  out  of  hand 

And  tills  his  heart  and  feeds  his  land  ; 

Is  hand  to  hand  against  the  wrong, 

And  sometimes,  tallest  when  he  kneels, 
Will  lend  a  hand  to  roll  the  wheels 
Of  manful,  mindful  toil  along. 

There  is  a  stain  but  not  of  dust 
That  soils  a  hand  beyond  repair, 

The  "  damned  spot  "  of  broken  trust ; 
There  is  a  fairer  hand  than  fair, 

There  is  a  shapelier  hand  than  Burns 

Has  sung.     It  may  be  broad  and  brown, 
And  knotty  as  an  antlered  crown  — 

The  open  hand  that  never  turns 

Its  back  when  need  is  at  the  door ; 

The  hand  that  feels  the  left-breast  knock 
Like  flails  upon  a  threshing-floor, 

And  closes  like  the  Arab  rock 

And  strikes  for  undefended   Right 
With  soul  and  sinew  tense  and  tight, 


A    VISION  OF  HANDS. 


127 


I28  DULCE  DOMUM. 

Straight  out,  and  smites  Goliah  down  — 
I  think  that  hand  has  won  renown  ; 
Might  touch  and  grace  a  kingly  crown  ! 

The  plighted  hand  that  glances  white  ; 
The  royal  hand  with  diamond  light ; 
The  gentle  hand  that  cools  the  brow 
Like  whispers  from  the  fragrant  snow 

Of  orchards  blossoming  in  May  ; 
.  The  artist  hand  that  halts  the  sun 

To  dawn  along  the  canvas  gray ; 
The  hand  whose  tuneful   fingers  run 

Along  the  strings  as  zephyrs  play, 

And  float  the  soul  on  some  sweet  dream 

Of  peace  for  which  we  ever  pray  ; 

The  cunning  hands  that  delegate 

To  nerves  of  fire  and  pulsing  steam, 
To  lively  valve  and  nimble  wheel, 

To  things  that  never  want  nor  wait, 
To  things  that  never  lie  nor  steal, 
Alive  as  life  and  trained  and  taught 
The  work  by  human  sinews  wrought  — 
Ah,  all  these  hands  are  wondrous  fair, 
And  yet  recounting  all,  I  dare 

To  toast  the  Farmers'  hands  that  kept 


A    VISION   OF  HANDS. 

The  wolf  and  wilderness  at  bay 
Where  Pilgrims'  bristling  winters  slept, 

And  shaggy,  white-maned  lions  lay  ; 
Who  picked  the  flint  and  picked  the  flint 
For  Indian  corn  and  Indian  foes, 


129 


And  cleared  the  cabins  and  the  rows 
Of  weeds  and  wampum  by  the  dint 
Of  rude  flint-locks  and  rugged  hoes. 


130 


DULCE  DO  MUM. 

The  hands  that  fired  the  morning  gun 
Of  Freedom  when  the  world  struck  "  one," 
And  dug  their  rations  as  they  went 
And  left  the  Lord  to  pitch  their  tent, 
Were  Farmers'  sons.     I  rather  think 
They  stood  so  close  to  Glory's  brink 
That,  one  step  more,  they  would  have  seen 
Headquarters  of  the  sons  of  men  ! 

Twins  of  the  million  hands  that  donned 

The  hickory  shirts  and  blouses  blue, 
And  marched  "with  equal  step"  beyond 

The  solemn  dead-lines  duty  drew  ; 
When  soulless  reapers  took  the  field 

And  tireless  threshers  smote  the  grain, 

And  speechless  mowers  swept  the  swath 
While  gallant  squadrons  charged  and  wheeled, 
And  bolts  of  thunder  struck  the  plain, 

And  batteries  tore  a  ragged  path 
Through  solid  columns  massed  amain 
And  mowed  the  human  aftermath, 
And  Blue  and  Gray  alternate  reeled, 
And  Gray  and  Blue  alternate  kneeled 

Along  the  road  of  wreck  and  wrath. 


A    VISION   OF  HANDS. 


u  WHO    GOES    THERE  ? 


DULCE   DOMUM. 

The  Sun  set  red  as  if  he  wrought 
The  bloody  work  he  looked  upon  ; 

The  Moon  rose  white  as  if  she  caught 
The  pallid  stare  on  which  she  shone 

Of  dead  men's  faces  turned  supine 

And  broken  pitchers  stained  with  wine, 


"AND    FORBID   THEM    NOT." 


IT  is  May  among  the  blossoms  but  November  in  my  breast, 
There's  a  warble  in  the  lilacs  but  my  bird  has  left  the  nest, 
Not  a  path  upon  the  planet  that  her  little  feet  have  pressed. 

Sure  an  angel  must  have  halted  on  an  errand  going  by, 
Must  have  whispered  to  the  truant  and  have  taught  her  how 

to  fly, 
And  she  followed  up  the  flutter  of  his  pinions  to  the  sky. 

From  the  Babel  of  my  sorrow  she  has  stolen  out  the  song, 
She  was  tangled  in  our  heart-strings  and  she  took  our  hearts 

along 
With   her  clinging   hands   so   delicate   and    yet   so   wondrous 

strong. 

As  the  reapers  miss  the  daisies  when  they  sweep  the  golden 

grain 

And  they  rise  like  constellations  when  the  day  begins  to  wane, 
So  has   Death  just   missed  my  darling  and   she   surely  lives 

again. 


133 


I34  DULCE  DOMUM. 

Ah,  how  strange  that  in  her  dying  she  became  a  deathless 

child, 

Like  the  children  in  the  story  upon  whom  the  Savior  smiled, 
That  eighteen  hundred  years  and  more  the  ages  have  beguiled. 

She  has  conquered   sin  and  sorrow,  she  has  triumphed  over 

time, 
Though    the   sexton    told    the   story  when   he   rung  a   single 

chime, 
Yet  the  echo  of  her  little  life  shall  linger  like  a  rhyme, 

And  shall  turn  the  thoughts  to  music  that  we  think  in  dreary 

prose, 
And   this   breath   of   being  rounded    till   it   scarce   outlived   a 

rose, 

As  the  rivulets  are  woven  till  the  river  seaward  flows, 
With  our  own  be  ever  blended  till  the  dream  of  earth  shall 

close. 


PRAIRIE    LAND. 


r  I  ^HE  prairies  are  the  empty  beds 

Deserted  on  some  nameless  day 
By  seas  that  raised  their  crested  heads 

And  took  their  crystal  clothes  away. 
Not  empty  now  !     A  grander  tide 
Than  those  of  old  that  ebbed  and  died, 

Of  golden  seas  that  cannot  drown, 
Of  oceans  where  no  Clarence  lies, 
All  rustling  round   the  loving  skies 

That  fit  the  shore-line  like  a  crown. 

These  feeble  images  convey 

No  picture  of  this  realm  to-day, 

Ye  golden  seas  and  tides  away  ! 

Behold  the  stately  Northwest  stands 
A  queenly  figure,  firm,  compact 
In  one  great  grandeur  by  the  act 

Of  God  and  man.     One  splendid  fact, 

135 


136  DULCE  DO  MUM. 

As  if  the  marble  statue  woke 

Completed  at  a  single  stroke  — 

'Tis  thus  to  me  the  Northwest  stands 

And  fronts  the  hungry  world,  to  hear 
The  prayer  of  Christendom  for  bread, 
And  holds  the  answer  forth  in  both  her  hands  ! 

The  heaping  harvests  of  the  year 
Upon  her  prairie  palms  are  spread 

From  parallel  to  parallel. 

The  lines  that  gypsies  read  to  tell 
A  fortune,  are  by  fortunes  hid 
As  Pharaoh  by  pyramid. 

The  men  still  live  who  might  have  seen 
This  land  without  a  yesterday  — 

An  empire  of  unfurrowed  green, 

Unpeopled  paradise  of  bees, 

Unsown,  unmown,  unknown,  and  gay 

With  floral  aborigines ; 

An  empty  wilderness  of  grass 

As  silent  as  a  looking-glass. 

The  prairie  schooners'  canvas  white 
Like  eggs  of  ants  in  beaded  line 


PRAIRIE   LAND. 


137 


A    COIN    OK    THE    REALM. 


I38  DULCE  DOMUM. 

Would  creep  all  day,  all  day  in  sight, 

As  blossoms  on  a  creeping  vine. 
Sometimes  the  drowning  sun  would  turn 

That  white  to  crimson  as  he  loomed, 
Would  watch  to  see  the  canvas  burn 

Like  Moses'  Bush  all  unconsumed  ; 
Would  make  a  trinket  of  the  train, 
Then  slowly  sink  beneath  the  main. 

Oh,  world  so  utterly  alone  ! 

Oh,  nights  that  weep  and  winds  that  moan ! 

Sometimes  a  group  of  horsemen  tall 

Would  ride  with  day-time  at  their  backs, 
Their  slender  shadows  weirdly  fall 

In  strange  eclipse  along  their  tracks; 
Ride  on  before  like  ghosts  that  guide 
And  leave  no  foot-prints  as  they  ride  ; 
Wolves  turn  and  look  a  glittering  growl 
And  slowly  winks  the  prairie  owl, 
Till  naked  Night  lets  down  her  hair 
And  lies  along  her  level  lair. 


THE    DESERTED    HOMESTEAD. 


IT  is  clean  gone  at  last  —  the  old  homestead!  It  has 
forgotten  its  vernacular.  Its  household  words  are  no 
longer  the  accents  of  Mother  Country  but  of  Faderland. 
The  Dutch  have  taken  it.  It  is  Holland,  and  the  old  "tur 
bulent  tides  "  of  memory  will  soon  be  diked  out  forever. 

But  whatever  becomes  of  it,  it  has  helped  mankind. 
"How  far  that  little  candle  throws  its  beams;  so  shines  a 
good  deed  in  this  naughty  world."  Did  you  ever  see  a 
rainbow  die?  —  the  sort  of  architecture  that  must  be  repaired 
every  second,  or  it  will  crumble  into  atoms  of  colorless  rain. 
And  so  the  drops  one  by  one  fall  into  their  places,  the  arch 
changing  each  instant  and  always  the  same,  until  the  rain 
comes  slow,  and  the  tints  grow  faint,  and  the  Bow  goes  out, 
and  the  cloud  is  bare  of  blazonry  as  if  God  had  never  put 
a  seal  to  the  Covenant.  True  and  beautiful  homes  are  drops 
of  rain,  and  they  are  the  hope  of  the  world. 

He  is  thrice  blest  who  has  some  mere  earthly  thing  to  tie  to; 
a  thing  made  bright  and  holy  by  unselfish  affections,  simple 

recollections,    small    sorrows    and    large    delights.     A    birth- 

139 


1 4o  DULCE   DOMUM. 

place  is  that  thing.  It  is  better  to  have  in  the  family  than 
a  cow  or  a  carriage,  or  even  a  castle  after  the  household 
birds  are  grown  and  flown.  A  right-hearted  man  pays  out 
the  line  that  ties  him  to  the  place  of  his  childhood,  but  he 
never  cuts  it,  for  so  it  is  he  can  hold  on  to  himself,  and  keep 
all  of  his  mental  belongings  together.  It  is  a  perpetual  clue 
to  his  identity. 

Many  people  seem  never  to  know  what  they  have  done 
with  themselves  ;  they  have  lost  so  much,  forgotten  so  much, 
despised  so  much,  of  feeling,  affection,  faith,  hope  and  desire, 
in  an  ambition  to  play  flying  artillery  in  life's  race,  that  who 
they  are  is  a  puzzle  even  to  themselves.  This  calamity 
never  happens  when  you  have  that  place  to  tie  to.  The 
immortal  tramp,  Bunyan's  Pilgrim,  would  tell  you,  if  he 
could,  that  a  man  travels  stronger  and  freer  under  a  knap 
sack,  if  only  it  is  not  the  pack  of  sin,  than  when  he  travels 
light.  Let  everybody,  therefore,  make  a  bundle  of  childhood 
and  homestead  and  take  them  along.  They  are  burdens  only 
as  wings  are:  only  lift  them  and  they  will  lift  you. 


THE    DESERTED    HOMESTEAD. 


i. 

FULL  twenty  summer-times  ago 
I  walked  along  this  country  road, 
When  life  and  love  were  both  in  blow 

And  none  would  dream  it  ever  snowed. 
I  saw  a  schoolma'am  coming  down, 
Her  rippling  hair  was  golden  brown, 
I  saw  her  firm  and  slender  hand, 
I  saw  her  foot-prints  in  the  sand, 
A  pair  of  rhymes  in  dainty  type 

That  brought  to  mind  the  old  Gazette 
Where  village  poets  used  to  pipe  — 

The  cricket  corner  where  they  set 
In  little  letters  chirps  of  song 
Whose  lines  were  only  cricket  long  — 
And  read  them  off  as  children  tell 
A  poem  by  the  nonpareil. 


1 42  DULCE  DO  MUM 

II. 
I  turned  highwayman  as  I  stood 

Beneath  these  oaks  now  older  grown 
And  cried  as  ruder  robbers  would, 

"  Thy  life  and  treasure  are  my  own  !  " 
I  halted  her  with  love's  surprise 
And  saw  my  answer  in  her  eyes  ; 
A  bee  was  busy  with  a  flower, 
A  bird  sang  low  from  maple  bower, 
The  old  white  school-house  swarmed  with  noise 

We  heeded  not  the  babel  rout, 
The  girls  knew  better  than  the  boys 

What  meant  the  meeting  there  without, 
And  smiling  stood  and  watched  me  hold 

Her  hand  in  mine  and  ran  and  told  ! 
And  some  were  mothers  long  ago 
And  some  caught  out  in  early  snow. 

III. 
Again  I  walk  the  road  and   meet 

Another  schoolma'am  coming  down 
Who  was  not  born  when  I  did  greet 

Her  sister  of  the  golden  crown. 
I  told  this  story  to  the  girl 
And  something  like  a  living  pearl 


THE  DESERTED  HOMESTEAD.  143 


Lit  up  the  eyelid  of  the  child  ; 

She  flashed  it  off  and  then  she  smiled. 

There  should  have  been  a  Bow,  I  thought, 

That  sunshine  and  that  drop  of  rain  — 
And  then  the  present  was  forgot 

And  perished  days  returned  again. 
This  thoughtful,  sad  September  day 
Has  slowly  worn  itself  away, 
The  sun  and  moon  are  face  to  face, 
He  wanes  in  strength,  she  gains  in  grace. 

IV. 

It  is  not  day,  it  is  not  night, 

Where  are  the  feet  that  came  and  went? 
Here  stands  the  homestead  still  and  white 

And  silent  as  a  monument. 
Its  curtained  windows  in  eclipse, 
Its  white  door  fast  as  marble  lips  ; 
Never  before  were  they  denied 
The  summer  flowers  and  hours  outside. 
Though  tides  of  fragrance  always  sweep, 

In  warmth  and  light  it  has  no  part, 
There  in  the  daytime  sound  asleep 

And  empty  as  a  broken  heart. 
The  willow  fountain  swings  and  swerves 


144  DULCE  DO  MUM. 

And  flings  its  leaf-wrought  spray  in  curves  ; 
Strange,  since  the  loved   no  longer  stay 
It  has  not  wept  itself  away. 

V. 

Here  round  the  house  the  brown  paths  ran 

To  lichened  gate  and  stoop  and  well, 
Full  forty  years  since  they  began 

To  warm  when  busy  bare  feet  fell. 
The  wilderness  redeems  its  own 
With  clover  leaves  and  plantain  strown, 
The  old  meanders  dimmed  and  grassed, 
The  surge  has  washed  them  out  at  last. 
The  dry  old  grindstone,  crank  bereft, 

Worn   like  a  pebble  in  a  brook, 
And  little  but  the  axle  left, 

Stands  idle  in  that  shady  nook. 
Ah,  lusty  times  when  naked  arms 
That  conquer  deserts  into  farms, 
Ground  off  the  sickle's  edge  of  wire 
'Mid  sparks  of  wit  and  sparks  of  fire, 
And  scythes,  swung  down  from  apple  limb 
Were  set  upon  its  rippling  rim. 
Gone  are  the  arms  that  turned  the  crank 
And  gone  the  stroke  through  grasses  rank. 


THE   DESERTED   HOMESTEAD. 


'45 


THE    WILLOW    FOUNTAIN    SWINGS   AND    SWERVES, 
AND    FLINGS    ITS    LEAF-WROUGHT   SPRAY    IN    CURVES; 
STRANGE,  SINCE    THE    LOVED    NO    LONGER    STAY, 
IT    HAS    NOT    WEFT    ITSELF    AWAY. 


I46  DULCE   DO  MUM. 

VI. 
The  showers  have  washed  the  colored  light 

Of  rainbows  down  upon  the  place, 
The  phloxes  flame  in  red  and  white, 

The  pansies  in  their  violet  grace  ; 
The  jaunty  jaybird's  azure  flash, 
The  rubies  of  the  mountain  ash, 
The  dear  old  aster's  gay  cockade, 
The  maples  with  their  green  parade, 
The  yellow  daisies  prim  and  clean, 

The  orange  butternut  that  pays 
In  golden  leaves  of  spotted  sheen 

Its  early  dues  to  Autumn  days, — 
All  these  no  weary  heart  can  wile 

Like  loving  smiles  from  living  eyes 
That  light  the  Lord's  last  holy  mile 

To  perfect  peace  and  Paradise  ! 

VII. 
Ah,  flood-wood  wreck,  old  cider-mill ! 

With  apple  cheese  and  amber  flow, 
Where  used  to  gather  round  thy  rill 

The  boys  and  bees  of  long  ago. 
How  sweet  new  apples  make  the  air 
As  fragrance  in  a  maiden's  hair. 


THE  DESERTED   HOMESTEAD.  I47 


I  see  their  constellations  gleam 
Like  planets  in  a  fairy's  dream, 
As  if  the  Maker  should  baptize 
Each  new-born  star  He  bade  arise 

In  rare  perfume,  and  all  should  shine 
With  aromatic  light  divine  ! 

VIII. 

In  silence  standing  on  this  brink 

Of  desolation  and  decay, 
Now  in  this  amber  cup  I  drink 

To  the  dear  dead  and  gone  away. 


148 


DULCE  DOMUM0 


THE    GARDEN    THERMOMETER. 


E1,  a  silver  pulse  in  a  crystal  vein 
And  it  silently  ebbs  and  flows, 
And  marks  the  chill  of  the  North  wind's  will 
And  it  times  the  bloom  of  the  rose. 

And  it  tells  of  snow  in  the  spotted  air, 
And  it  shrinkingly  shows  the  sift 

Of  frosty  stars  where  the  crimson  spars 
Of  the  Arctic  admirals  lift. 

When  the  silver  mounts  in  the  vein  of  glass, 
Then  the  butterfly's  wing'd  brocade 

Shakes  out  of  reef  like  a  folded  leaf 
And  the  corn  ranks  off  in  brigade. 

When  the  silent  pulse  to  the  Zero  sinks 
Then  as  brave  as  a  lord's  saloon 

The  nail-heads  shine  in  the  walls  of  pine 
Like  the  dew-drops  under  the  moon  ; 


1 5o  DULCE  DOMUM. 

And  the  kitchen  fire  is  an  oriflamme 
And  the  panes  of  the  window  show 

The  astral  bloom  and  the  diamond  plume 
And  the  mimic  May  of  the  snow. 

There  are  fans  of  pearl,  there  are  shells  with  rings, 

There  are  violets  ghostly  white, 
And  tarns  and  urns  and  the  fretted  ferns 

Of  the  winter-time  in  the  night. 

There  is  naught  so  cold  in  the  Arctic  zone 

As  a  heart  that  is  "  ten  below  " 
At  the  snowy  line  of  the  dwindling  pine, 

On  the'  glacier  field  or  the  floe. 

And  no  Boreal  blast  from  its  ghastly  gloom 

Is  as  chill  as  the  frosty-souled 
With  thoughts  as  clear  as  the  Windermere 

And  the  heart  left  out  in  the  cold. 

Let  us  pray  for  hearts  with  an  endless  June 
Though  the  winds  of  the  world  are  wild, 

No  zero  there  nor  a  fever'd  care 

But  the  blue-eyed  faith  of  a  child. 


THE    MINGLING   OF   THE    NATIONS. 


A  MEMORY  OF  THE  CENTENNIAL,  1876. 

DEAD  and  gone  Truth's  faltering  lisper 
Rent  the  recantation  robe, 
Galileo's  feeble  whisper 

Rings  around  the  startled  globe. 
Tremble  out  the  joy,  ye  steeples, 

While  your  iron  welkins  roar, 
Met  and  mingled,  Babel  peoples 

Sundered  by  the  seas  no  more. 
Met  and  mingled  !    Turban,  tartan, 

Lotus  Egypt,  lily  France, 
Moslem,  German,  Spaniard,  Spartan, 

South  Sea  Isles  from  tropic  trance, 
Lapland  snow-drops,  Persian  roses, 

Grecian  laurel,  English  oak, 
Erin's  shamrock,  land  of  Moses,  % 

Cedars  where  the  Savior  spoke  ; 
Palm  and  pine  and  Judah's  willows, 

Grand  Brazil  whose  rainbows  broke, 


I52  DULCE   DOMUM. 


Showering  all  her  leaves  with  light, 
Arctic  with  his  marble  billows, 

Dead  and  pallid  anthracite. 
Scotland's  thistle,  Scotland's  Scott, 

Robert  Burns  and  Robert  Bruce 
Who  bid  all  earth  "  forget-me-not  " 

And  Time  flings  out  his  flag  of  truce ! 
Land  of  Hamlet,  hills  of  Homer, 

Almond  eyes  and  Saxon  hair, 
Alps  of  Tell  and  sands  of  Omar, 

Ivory  land  and   Northern   Bear. 
Gliding  on  with  Orient  greeting 

See  blue-trouser'd  thatched  Japan 
Cool  with  palm-leaf  breezes,  meeting 

Ermined  Russia  with  a  fan  ! 
Palmetto,  Ophyr,  Oregon, 

Call  the  roll  of  nations  off 
From   Herr  and  Don  to  China  John, 

From  Malabar  to  Malakoff, 
Egypt !     Earth's  own  eldest  daughter, 

Colorado,  silver  bride, 
One  mountain-born  and  one  of  water, 

Eldest,  youngest,  side  by  side. 
In  and  out  the  halls  of  wonder,— 

Centennial  grand  the  ground, 


THE   MINGLING   OF   THE   NATIONS.  153 

Mingled  nations  passing  under 

Flags  of  all  the  globe  around, 
Coming,  smiling,  greeting,  going, 
Flags  above  them  flaming,  glowing, 
Like  October's  frosty  woods, 

Gathered  like  the  Judgment  Day, 

Like  the  tides  in  Fundy's  Bay, 
Ebb  and  flow  the  Multitudes. 
And  above  them,  ay,  above  them, 

Dearer  than  the  Unicorn, 
Forty  million  hearts  to  love  them, 

Fairer  than   the  Crescent  Horn, 
Like  sacred   fire  on  altar-place, 

Lily-white  and   red  as  Mars, 
Like  some  broad  wing  of  angel  grace 

Brightly  flare  the  Stripes  and  Stars ! 
There,  in  clear  or  cloudy  weather, 

Be  it  day  or  be  it  night, 
Ever  shine  they  altogether, 

Stricken  sparks  of  empire  light. 
"What  o'clock  by  time  sidereal?" 

Hark,  the  world's  gray  sentries  cry. 
Behold  that  banner  blue  ethereal 

And  the  STARS  shall  make  reply. 


154  DULCE   DOMUM. 

Over  all,  "  Old  Glory  "  gleaming, 

Whiter  than  the  driven  snow, 
Fairer  than  an  angel's  dreaming, 

Woven   in  no  loom  below, 
With  an  Olive  Branch  upon  it 

And  a  Christmas  Holly  spray, 
Words  far  sweeter  than  a  sonnet 

Written  with  a  sunshine  ray  : 
Glory  unto  God  forever  ! 

Hosanna  to  the  Lord  again  ! 
Battle  blast  the  nations  never, 

Peace  on  earth  —  good  will  to  MEN. 


WELCOME    HOME. 


dust  of  John  Howard  Payne,  having  been  borne 
across  the  world,  was  consigned,  on  a  pleasant  day  in 
June,  1883,  to  its  final  rest  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 
The  spirit  that  christened  him  John  Howard,  after  the  great 
philanthropist,  seems  prophetic,  for  it  named  the  boy,  that 
"  father  of  the  man,"  who  in  the  coming  time  should  write 
out,  in  simplest  household  words,  the  heart  of  the  home- 
loving  world,  and  so  prove  himself  the  gentle  lover  of  the 
bond  and  the  free.  The  incident  by  the  Rappahannock  river 
strikingly  shows  that  "  Sweet  Home,"  of  all  earthly  melo 
dies,  is  the  master  song. 


155 


156 


DULCE   DO  MUM. 


WELCOME  DEAR  HEART  AND  TAKE  THY  REST 
AT  "HOME,  SWEET  HOME"  FOREVER. 


WELCOME    HOME. 


OH,  dews  and  flowers  of  splendid  June, 
With  pearls  and  garlands  grace  his  tomb 
Who  taught  Milan's  dear  Maid  the  tune 
That  times  the  whole  world's  loving  feet, 
To  which  all  golden  hearts  shall  beat, 
Where'er  they  wait  or  weep  or  roam, 
Of  "  Home,  sweet  Home"  forever. 

O'er  mariner  on  the  Spanish   main, 

The  tattered   miner  in  his  tent, 
The  wanderer  on  the  throbbing  plain 
Where  yellow  noons  by  simoons  wheeled 
Smite  Desolation's  flinty  shield, 

A  second  Bow  of  Hope  is  bent 

In  "Home,  sweet  Home"  forever. 

And  when  to  bugle  and  the  blast 

Where  battle  turns  the  lilies  red, 
Through  flashing  columns  standing  fast 
The  soldier  cuts  the  narrow  lane 

That  lets  him  through  to  Glory's  fane 
157 


158  DULCE  DOMUM. 

He  hears  an  angel  overhead 

Sing  "Home,  sweet  Home"  forever. 

The  weary  traveler  who  waits 

In  twilight's  dim  and  drear  abode 
The  opening  of  the  Pearly  Gates 
That  some  faint  ray  or  friendly  star 
May  shine  abroad  through  doors  ajar 
And  show  his  fading  eyes  the  road, 
Sighs  "  Home,  sweet  Home  "  forever. 

A  camp  of  Blue,  a  camp  of  Gray, 

A  peaceful  river  rolled  between, 
Were  pitched  two  rifle  shots  away, 
The  sun  had  set  the  West  a-glow, 
The  evening  clouds  were  crimson  snow, 
The  twinkling  camp-fires  faintly  seen 
Across  the  dark'ning  river. 

Then  floated  from  the  Federal  band 

The  "Spangled   Banner's"  starry  strain, 
The  Grays  struck  up  their  "  Dixie  Land," 
And  "  Rally  Round  "  and  "  Bonny  Blue  " 
And  "  Red  and  White  "  alternate  flew, — 
Ah,  no  such  flights  shall  cross  again 
The  Rappahannock  river ! 

And  then,  above  the  glancing  "  beam 
Of  song  "  a  bugle  warbled  low 


WELCOME  HOME. 

Like  some  bird  startled  from  a  dream 

"  Home,  Home,  sweet  Home,"  and  voices  rang 

And  Gray  and  Blue  harmonious  sang  — 

All  other  songs  were  like  the  snow 
Among  the  pines  when  winds  are  stilled, 
And  hearts  and  voices  throbbed  and  thrilled 

With  "  Home,  sweet  Home  "  forever. 
No  matter  what  the  Flag  unfurled, 
Ah,  DULCE  DOMUM  rules  the  world  ! 

Sweet  Singer  of  the  Song  of  men, 

Thou  comest  late  to  claim  thine  own, 

But  when  the  daisies  rise  again 

Arrayed  in  all  thy  borrowed   dust, 

The  world  will  hold  thy  words  in  trust 
And  Ages  chant  from  zone  to  zone 
Thy  "Home,  sweet  Home"  forever. 

The  Memnon  murmured  song,  they  thought 

When  dawning  day  his  lips  impressed, 
And  flushing  marble  warmed  and  caught 
The  sweet  Ionic  of  the  Greek;  — 
Ah,  truer  far  thy  lips  shall  speak 
Nor  wait  the  touch  of  sun  or  stars, 
For  thee  the  night-time  has  no  bars- 
Welcome  dear  Heart  and  take  thy  rest 
At  "  Home,  sweet  Home  "  forever. 


159 


[Taylor,  B,f  . 

Dulce  domum. 


3 G 5998 


953 

T2J83 

d 


3 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


